Tight time squeeze on extra funds

Social service agencies struggling to cope with the recession have been given less than a month to apply for a new emergency fund, even though the panels that will allocate the money have not yet been appointed.

The Ministry of Social Development notified agencies this week that applications for the new $40 million "community response fund" would close at 5pm on July 3 and the 12 proposed regional panels would consider applications between July 27 and August 14.

Successful applicants will be notified in mid-September, and applications for a second funding round will also close in that month.

The ministry has listed the regions to be covered by the 12 regional panels, including two covering north/west and central/south Auckland, but deputy chief executive Richard Wood said yesterday that there would be no public nomination process and the panels would be in place "probably in the next two weeks".

"We know who knows about that sector," he said. "We want the funders already working in this sector, who know about what's working and what's not working, and we will bolster that with community representation.

"That may vary from location to location depending on who knows the issues about this particular sector and who can be seen to be totally unbiased."

The ministry says the fund will be available to any non-profit agency delivering "critical social services" in the priority areas of family violence, child abuse and neglect, budgeting, sexual violence, early intervention, families under stress and vulnerable or at-risk young people or older people.

Agencies do not need to be funded already by the ministry.

But applicants need to show either significantly increased demand for their services as a direct result of the recession, or "severe financial difficulty" due to losing funding from charitable trusts or other sources hit by the recession.

Agencies contacted this week were concerned about a provision that the funding could specifically not be used for "ongoing operational costs".

Suzanne Brotherton of the Lifeboyz Trust, which runs after-school and holiday programmes for boys with disabilities at Pakuranga's Lloyd Elsmore Park, said her trust missed out on operational funding when the ASB Trust cancelled its initial funding round this year and it seemed "crazy" to exclude operational costs from the new fund.

But Mr Wood said the new fund would cover operational costs where required to offset funding lost from other sources because of the recession.

The ministry has confirmed that regional grants will be capped at a maximum of $50,000 for each application except in "very exceptional circumstances". Grants to national organisations will be negotiated separately.

www.familyservices.govt.nz/our-work/funding-resources/community-response.html