‘Big society’ cash scramble

The prime minister this week announced that ‘every penny’ from dormant bank and building accounts would be channelled through the bank, which is being set up to fund social enterprises, charities and volunary group projects.

In a speech in Liverpool on Monday, David Cameron suggested the as yet unfinalised figure would amount to hundreds of millions of pounds.

Mr Cameron said the bank was part of his plans for ‘a huge cultural change’ which would see power shifted from Whitehall elites to the ‘man and woman on the street’.

The charity sector - of which housing associations are part - will increasingly deliver public services in the ‘big society’ world he envisages.

Cameron Watt, policy leader at the National Housing Federation, said associations were keen to access the Big Society Bank’s funds.

‘I would expect that the community services that many of our members do would be eligible for funding,’ he said. ‘We will be talking to officials in the coming months.’

Paul Hackett, chief operating officer at Amicus Horizon, said his association would apply for funding from the bank to kick-start new projects.

Bill Payne, chief executive of Metropolitan Housing Partnership, warned other aspects of the ‘big society’ plan needed scrutiny. Any expansion of the voluntary sector into public service provision needs to be monitored properly, he said.

‘We have a statutory and legal responsibility for looking after vulnerable people and I am nervous about care and support for them being replaced by volunteers’, he said.

A spokesperson for the Cabinet Office, which oversees the ‘big society’ project, said the bank would be independent from governmnent. ‘It will be for the Big Society Bank, once it is set up, to decide who to invest in’, he said.

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