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Third Sector Review

I agree with the hon. Gentleman. We also increasingly need to consider the skills involved in filling in application forms. That might sound facetious, but it is an important point. People need training in how best to get through the system to secure the money that their organisations need. The citizens advice bureau in my constituency is an illustration of the core funding problem. I recently received a letter from its chairman, Michael Bell, who said that the local authorities across East Sussex are threatening to replace the bureau's core funding with the commissioning of particular services through competitive tendering in the marketplace, and that fixed costs would then have to be spread across specific projects. At present, there are fixed costs to cover core funding available from the various district councils in the county. That will be a retrogressive move, but such arrangements will become more and more common. I do not pretend that there is an easy answer to the problem, but I would like to hear the Minister's views on the matter. Another problem with the funding for third sector organisations is the diversity of its supply. In one sense, that is a strength, because the organisations are not dependent on one particular body; that would be a dangerous relationship. On the other hand, that diversity of funding results in a huge amount of work to secure pockets of money from here, there and everywhere. For example, according to the National Audit Office report published in August this year, Mencap received £155 million in the last year for which figures were available, and that money came from 532 different sources. That must have involved a huge number of attempts to get money. Some of these bodies must spend more on internal organisation than they would wish. They want to deal with their client base, and with the people whom they are trying to help, and too much of their time is spent on trying to secure funding.