Pre-Budget Report

The Chancellor of the Exchequer has given his Pre-Budget Report, an event which has in recent years become more of a miniature budget. The Chancellor downgraded the growth forecast for 2008 (after exceeding forecasts for 2006) and made a deficit forecast of 37%, the largest structural deficit of any major European economy.

The headline increases in fuel duty of 1.25p / litre, along with a rise in short-haul Air Passenger Duty of 100% have been well covered elsewhere and will have small impacts on organisations, but what implications are there for the sector from the latest statement from the Treasury?

The full Pre-Budget Report is available on HM Treasury Website

Following on from the Budget for 2006

The Budget for 2006 announced the largest ever consultation with the sector on the future role of the third sector in social and economic regeneration. This

consultation has reached in excess of 1,000 third sector organisations in nine regional events together with 84 sub-regional and sub-sectoral events. This joint HM Treasury and Cabinet Office review is overseen by a cross-departmental ministerial group.

The future role of the third sector in social and economic regeneration: interim report, published alongside the Pre-Budget Report, sets out the key messages highlighted by the consultation and areas where the Government is considering action.

Areas for action include the role of the third sector in creating stronger and more connected communities and giving voice to diverse groups; how the Government can foster a culture of volunteering and mentoring, and what more needs to be done to improve and implement best practice in relations between the third sector and all levels of Government.

In addition, Gordon Brown announced:

• an expectation that when Government departments and their agencies receive their 2008-09 to 2010-11 budgets through the 2007 Comprehensive Spending Review, the flexibility and certainty of that three year funding will be passed on to third sector organisations that they fund as the norm rather than the exception; and
• for 2007-08, the Department for Communities and Local Government will allocate an extra £6.5 million in the Safer and Stronger Communities block of Local Area Agreements.
• movement on unclaimed assets, allowing the value of genuinely unclaimed assets to be used by the community, with a guarantee of asset-owner reuniting efforts and a right of an owneer to reclaim an asset
• an attempt to identify and eliminate complexities in tax relief schemes which may be preventing community groups from benefiting.

Third sector review

The Government will be consulting on how a new generation of young people can do more to volunteer in the run up to the London 2012 Olympics. It will also consider the case for further incentives to encourage volunteering.

Outside the sector, Peter Hain has briefed on what he sees as the implications of the Pre-Budget Report for Northern Ireland: