A further £36m of Libor funding has been committed to charities over the next three years, as the Treasury announced in today’s Budget that the scheme has now closed.
The grants, which have been committed over the next 3 years to support armed forces and emergency service charities, and other related good causes, are the last to come from the Libor Funding Scheme. This brings the total funding committed up to £773m since 2012.
Unlike previous years, Libor announcements were not included in Chancellor Philip Hammond’s speech, only in the budget documents.
Money from this last tranche of Libor funding included just under £3m for the Scar Free Foundation; £1.5m to the Royal British Legion; £1.4m to The Fire Fighters Charity; £1.5m for Police Treatment Centres; and £1m for SSAFA the Armed Forces Charity.
Zimbabwe A National Emergency, which supports 583 Commonwealth ex-Servicemen, women and widows living in extreme poverty in Zimbabwe, received £1.3m of the funding.
A total of 82 charities were awarded Libor funding in this year’s budget, 13 of which received at least £1m.
A recent National Audit Office report confirmed some of the concerns that had been raised over Libor funding, and revealed that the government cannot yet demonstrate the impact the Libor grant fund has had as “it has not been evaluating the impact of the grant schemes on the charity sector”.
In the Budget documents about the banking fines, it states that a ten-week public application process ran for this round of funding, with 370 applications received. It said all applications have been “assessed independently through a rigorous process which has involved grant making experts, the Charity Commission, the Government New Grants Advice Panel and input from the devolved governments and other government departments”.
Other funding
The government has also committed an additional £4.7m to modernise Poppy Factories in Richmond and Edinburgh “to make them fit for purpose and to secure the production of the Poppy, the iconic symbol of National Remembrance, throughout the UK for the next generation”.
The Budget documents also revealed that a £2m Cultural Development Fund will be set up to “support the role culture can play in regeneration and local growth. The fund will be administered by DCMS.
The full list of charities to receive Libor funding can be found here.
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