The chancellor Philip Hammond announced a number of new pots of funding for charities totalling £44.7m in yesterday's Budget.
This includes funding for armed forces charities, air ambulance trusts, food redistribution charities and village halls.
While sector bodies welcomed the funding, some have expressed frustration at the lack of strategic investment for the sector.
There was no new money provided to the Tampon Tax Fund. In previous Budgets the VAT paid on feminine hygiene products was given to a fund to support women’s issues.
Armed forces charities
Some £10m has been announced to support veterans’ mental health projects.
Funding to the Armed Forces Covenant Fund Trust has been made following a campaign for a VAT rebate for charities building memorials.
Hammond said that because it is not possible to waive the VAT, £10m has been awarded to the charity, which will be used to improve mental health services for former servicemen to mark the centenary of the end of World War I.
Hammond said: “I commit today that the Treasury will mark the centenary of the armistice by making a donation of £10m to the Armed Forces Covenant Fund Trust to support veterans with mental health needs.”
The document also said that a charity will get £1.7m to deliver educational projects in schools about the Holocaust. The Chancellor specifically mentioned the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in his address.
Air ambulances
The chancellor also announced £10m in capital funding for air ambulance trusts.
There are 27 members of the Association of Air Ambulances. Trusts are usually registered charities, which do not receive statutory funding and need to fundraise to buy and maintain aircraft.
Village halls
Village halls, miners’ welfare facilities and armed forces organisations’ facilities will have access up to £8m to help with refurbishment.
Last week at an event in Parliament, Julia Unwin, the chair of the Civil Society Futures Inquiry, said she had been struck by how “bedraggled” many civil society spaces have become during the course of the project.
Food waste
The Budget document announced that £15m would be made available to tackle food waste.
“Around 250 million meals’ worth of accessible edible food is needlessly wasted every year," the Budget document said. "The government will provide £15 million to charities and others to distribute this surplus food."
There are already a number of charity schemes such as FareShare, which work with supermarkets, and others to distribute food that cannot be sold.
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