Cabinet Office
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Adventure Capital Fund to run £215m Futurebuilders Fund
The Cabinet Office today announced its intention to appoint the Adventure Capital Fund (ACF) to manage the second phase of the Futurebuilders fund. Their appointment follows a rigorous tender process. ACF will be responsible for investing an additional £65million of government funds, on top of the £150m already made available to the Futurebuilders Fund, to develop third sector delivery of public services between 1 April 2008 and 31 March 2011. ACF will also manage the existing investments. Current investees and third sector organisations that have applications in the pipeline will not be affected. Since its launch in 2004 the Futurebuilders Fund has provided loan and grant based finance to support charities, voluntary groups, social enterprises and other third sector organisations to develop their capacity to deliver better public services. This first phase, managed by Futurebuilders England, focused on developing services in five key areas, children and young people, community cohesion, crime, health, and education. First announced last year, from 1 April 2008 the second phase will open up the fund to bids from third sector organisations delivering any public service.
Phil Hope, Minister for the Third Sector, said:
'It is important that third sector organisations who want to deliver public services have the opportunity to do so. Many have a unique focus, specialist knowledge and the ability to reach some of the most vulnerable people in society. The second phase of Futurebuilders will bring new challenges for the fund manager but ACF has demonstrated great ability and enthusiasm to take on this challenge. I have no doubt that they will build on the success of the programme to date and the ground-breaking work undertaken by Futurebuilders England in the first phase.'
'I want to reassure current investees and organisations with applications in the pipeline there will be an orderly and well managed transition to the new fund manager and the programme will not be adversely affected by the change.'
The broader scope of the second phase of the Futurebuilders programme was a recommendation of the Futurebuilders Advisory Panel annual report published in March 2007.
Notes to editors:
1. The Adventure Capital Fund is a charity that was set up in 2002 to fund community enterprises by offering a combination of financial investments and expert support. http://www.adventurecapitalfund.org.uk/
2. In order to open preliminary discussion on this tender, we announced our intention to tender on 2 April 2007: http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/third_sector/news/news_stories/070403_tender.aspx
3. We published a discussion document to invite further views on the tender to deliver the second phase of the Futurebuilders Fund on 25 May 2007: http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/third_sector/news/news_stories/070525_futurebuilders.aspx
4. We published a contract notice in the Official Journal of the European Union asking for potential bidders to submit expressions of interest by completing a Pre Qualification Questionnaire and returning it to the Office of the Third Sector by 10 September. http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/third_sector/news/news_stories/070803_fund_manager.aspx
5. The Futurebuilders Fund is currently operated and managed by Futurebuilders England Ltd (FBE) under a tripartite Agreement between the Cabinet Office, FBE (http://www.futurebuilders-england.org.uk/), and Charity Bank (http://www.charitybank.org/).
6. For more information about the Futurebuilders Programme see http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/third_sector/funding_finance_support/futurebuilders.aspx
7. For more information about the Futurebuilders Advisory Panel, including their report, see http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/third_sector/news/news_stories/070321_futurebuilders.aspx
8. The Office of the Third Sector was formed in May 2006 to drive forward the Government's role in supporting a thriving third sector, and join up sector-related work across government. For more information see http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/third_sector/about_us.aspx
Cabinet Office Press Office 22 Whitehall LONDON SW1A 2WH
