Civil Service Quarterly showcases the innovative work civil servants are doing. This edition includes articles on:

• Public Bodies Reform Programme: Canals and River Trust chairman Tony Hales and Peter Unwin, DG at Defra, talk about how they turned a national treasure into a charitable trust
• the Behavioural Insights Team look at how data can help prevent mobile phone theft
• life as secondee: moving from the Department of Health to the Beijing Embassy with the FCO
• measuring the impact of UK spending on drugs and prostitution on the country’s GDP
• developing smarter online ways to link together the huge amount of data departments produce
• speeding up the creation of policy
• John Manzoni looks at what we are doing to improve how organisations are run
• creating a new suite of tools that standardise our understanding of costs and benefits

You can read also read these online on the Civil Service Quarterly blog.

All the PDF editions of Civil Service Quarterly, a publication showcasing the best work done by UK civil servants.

Civil Service Quarterly is a publication written by civil servants and produced by the Cabinet Office to open up the work of civil servants to discussion and debate. You can also read and subscribe to the magazine online.

If you have an idea for the magazine, please email CSQ@cabinetoffice.gov.uk.

This page sets out the Business Statements by the Leader of the House of Commons for November 2014.

The Business Statement takes place every Thursday morning when the House is sitting, usually at 11:30am. Statements are available here shortly after being announced to the House.

The government published its Open Government Partnership (OGP) UK National Action Plan (NAP) 2013 to 2015 on 31 October 2013. This update provides an overview of our progress against the milestones within our commitments in the NAP as at 30 September 2014.

For more detailed progress reports for each of our commitments, see the UK page on the OGP website.

The milestone numbers have changed since the last update (as at 30 April 2014) to reflect the increasing number of milestones.

It’s a pleasure to speak to you today.

Cyber security is a shared responsibility. The internet is too complex for any single organisation to respond alone. So it’s crucial that the public and private sectors come together at events like this to discuss how we can work together to protect ourselves online.

The timing is good too with The Imitation Game in cinemas, which tells the story of Alan Turing and Bletchley Park. It’s a reminder of Britain’s amazing heritage in cryptography and computer science.

If you visit the museum at Bletchley Park they have on display a piece of cable from an early Turing machine. It’s practically all that remains from one of the world’s first proto-computers – but it only survived by chance. One of the workmen tasked with dismantling the equipment at the end of the war used it to tie up his holdall because the fastener had broken.

It’s amazing to think the computer age began in a quiet corner of Buckinghamshire, but the need for discretion and secrecy meant the UK’s part in this story was almost forgotten.

Today, things are different, and we can’t afford to be modest. When Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web 25 years ago, he did it in a way that was open and free, so that anyone could take his creation and help it expand and grow.

So as much as we focus on making the cyber threat sound dark and menacing so that people and businesses protect themselves online, we must never lose sight of the benefits and the opportunities that the internet has brought.

The digital revolution has the power to create jobs, transform public services and to change the way we live and work. In so many areas – from cyber security to satellite communications – Britain is at the forefront of developments, and we should be shouting about this from the rooftops: this is a strength for Britain – and we’re determined to seize the opportunities that the digital age presents.

National cyber security strategy

Cyber attacks are ranked as a tier one threat to the UK. When the coalition was formed in 2010 we conducted a Strategic Defence and Security Review that ranked cyber alongside risks like terrorism, international conflict and natural disasters when measured against both the likelihood of occurrence and severity of impact. So when we published the UK’s first Cyber Security Strategy– 3 years ago next Tuesday – we backed it with £860 million of investment up to 2016.

Normally my day job is about trying to save money. And when you consider the pressures on spending across government, I think the fact we’re prepared to invest such a large sum in beefing up our cyber resilience is an indication of just how seriously we take this issue.

Government leading by example

It’s absolutely right that government should lead by example, and over the past few years we’ve launched a number of initiatives to secure our own systems and to support others. We want the UK to be one of the safest places in the world to do business – it’s part of our long term economic plan.

Only yesterday, CESG, the information security arm of GCHQ, launched a new certified training scheme in partnership with APM Group. It will certify cyber security training courses to ensure they meet the required standard. It will also help individuals and businesses quickly identify the courses most relevant to their needs.

We’re also keen for good cyber practice to reverberate through our supply chain. Since October this year, the government requires all suppliers bidding for certain personal and sensitive information handling contracts to be compliant with the 5 critical controls set out under the Cyber Essentials scheme.

This scheme gives businesses clarity on good basic cyber security practice and will provide protection against the most common threats. It’s often the simplest measures that can make the biggest difference. After going through a certification process, businesses will be able to show they have the right measures in place by displaying the Cyber Essentials badge, which we hope becomes the cyber equivalent of the MOT certificate.

GOV.UK Verify

Cyber security is also an important consideration as we transform the government’s digital presence. We started with GOV.UK, a single website for all government services and information, which celebrated its 1 billionth visitor last month, despite the fact it’s only been open for 2 years.

Now we’ve turned our attention to digitising 25 high-volume public services.

One by one these services are becoming faster, clearer and more convenient to use, and the number of people using them continues to grow – for instance, 1 million people used the new Independent Electoral Registration service in the 2 months after it went live.

So as we go digital by default it becomes even more important that someone signing in to use a service is who they say they are. That’s why we’re developing GOV.UK Verify with funding through the National Cyber Security Programme.

For the first time people will be able to prove their identity in an entirely digitally manner. It will allow government – and eventually private sector services too – to trust that a user is who they say they are. This work is still at a relatively early stage – it went into public beta testing earlier this month – but, in time, it will make a real contribution to trust and security in the digital age.

Coupled with Verify, we’ve also been investing to ensure the public sector staff have the necessary skills and capabilities to help combat the threats government faces in cyberspace.

By training skilled staff at the Department for Work and Pensions and investing in HM Revenue & Customs’ Cyber Security Command Centre, for instance, the National Cyber Security Programme aims to ensure the departments responsible for our largest online services have the technology and capabilities they need to operate safely online.

Cooperation

But while it’s right the government leads by example, we can’t do it alone. There’s no single magic bullet to neutralise the cyber threat, but the one thing common to all our efforts – whether it’s about resilience, or awareness, or capability and skills – is co-operation.

Earlier this year, I opened CERT-UK, our first national Computer Emergency Response Team, to bring about closer co-operation between businesses and the government and law enforcement agencies. It means that there is now a single organisation co-ordinating our response to cyber issues on a daily basis, which can identify and track risks as they emerge and, when necessary, bring others together to respond.

Already its services have been much in demand, responding to numerous threats like Heartbleed, Gameover Zeus and Shylock – just 3 examples from a constant stream of incidents. Officials from CERT have worked behind the scenes to help co-ordinate cyber security around the NATO Summit in Wales and contribute to the security of the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow.

Sitting as part of CERT-UK is the Cyber Security Information Sharing Partnership or CiSP for short. CiSP enables government and business partners to exchange information on threats and vulnerabilities as they occur in real time. This enables a ‘fusion cell’ made up of analysts from business and law enforcement to draw together a single intelligence picture of cyber threats facing the UK.

By the end of October, nearly 700 companies had joined the Partnership and it continues to grow. This year we’ve been trialling a regional CiSP node in the East Midlands which is run in conjunction with the Regional Organised Crime Unit. We are currently evaluating the success of this trial and hope to develop similar regional nodes elsewhere.

Shellshock

In September, CERT-UK responded to the Bash vulnerability, also known as Shellshock.

Details first emerged late one evening, but before 9am the next morning CERT-UK had already posted information onto the Cyber Information Sharing Partnership and in the following 72 hours there were over 1,000 page views. CiSP members were actively sharing their own information to contribute to our situational awareness and a number of new companies joined the Fusion Cell during this period, further building the capability.

This is the pattern for success: governments and businesses working together – quickly and in real time – to share intelligence, learn lessons, pool capabilities and coordinate action.

CiSP works on trust. It has government involvement, but it’s business-led. Information is shared voluntarily, and that’s why it works. The more partners that join, the more information that’s shared, the better the overall picture and the greater our collective resilience.

You’ll be hearing from CERT-UK’s director, Chris Gibson, later today and I would encourage as many organisations as possible to join.

Critical national infrastructure

The government is also working closely with owners and operators of the UK’s Critical National Infrastructure, most of it of course now in the private sector.

Through the National Cyber Security Programme we’re funding an ambitious programme of work to make sure both government and businesses know our critical cyber assets – the ones that keep the country running. We want to understand their resilience to sophisticated cyber attacks so we can work together to keep these systems secure.

This work is proceeding well and I’m pleased to see how positively the private and public sectors are embracing the importance of working together to make the UK as whole more resilient.

Growth

We also want to work with cyber businesses to help them grow. Later today I’m off to Worcestershire to visit the cluster of small cyber security firms that belong to the Malvern Cyber Security Cluster and to meet some of the brilliant people they employ.

In recent years the number of firms in this region has grown from around 45 to nearer 75, and the area is deservedly becoming known as Britain’s ‘Cyber Valley’. These firms may be small, but they’re innovative, agile and are winning contracts around the world.

A case in point is Titania – a firm of 22 staff and growing – which supplies its software to customers in over 60 countries. This afternoon I’ll have the privilege of opening their new premises – a sign of their growth and success.

So a part of our long term economic plan, we’re backing cyber firms like these through the Cyber Growth Partnership and the Cyber Exports Strategy. We want to be exporting £2 billion worth of products and services by 2016.

And with the support of funding from the National Cyber Security Programme, we’re working to bring together clusters of cyber firms in other places, including Cambridge, Bristol, London, Southampton and Brighton.

We’re also working with business to identify and develop cyber skills and expertise in the next generation to meet the demands of the workforce. We can’t just look in the normal places. Some of the best are self-taught and we want them to help make the UK safe online.

Earlier I mentioned Bletchley Park, which was full of people from all kinds of backgrounds – from chess grandmasters to experts in Egyptian papyrus. What they all had in common was sheer brain power. We need to be much better at finding and nurturing their modern day equivalents.

Earlier this year I opened the final of the 2014 Cyber Security Challenge. It’s one way of demonstrating the value of cyber security as a career opportunity to as wide an audience as possible. There were over 2,000 new joiners this year, with 18,000 registered overall. Almost 1 in 3 of those who reach the final stage of the competition go on to find work in cyber security. It’s just one of the ways we’re trying to plug the skills gap.

The cyber threat is nothing that cannot be matched and defeated through human ingenuity or expertise, which is why we’ve got to get better at identifying and developing people with talent so they can help keep us secure.

Conclusion

So, in conclusion, my message today is that we must continue to work together – this is absolutely essential to success. Only by working together in real time can we share the information and intelligence necessary to combat the threats more effectively and mitigate our weakness before the cyber criminals have the opportunity to exploit them.

But we can also turn a necessary evil into an exciting opportunity for jobs and growth, innovation and advancement. This will make the UK one of the safest places in the world to do business and ensure that our economy and society continues to benefit from the ongoing digital transformation.

This European Convention on Human Rights memorandum addresses issues arising under the Convention in relation to the Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Bill.

The memorandum has been prepared by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, with input from HM Treasury, the Cabinet Office, the Department for Education and UK Export Finance.

Introduction

Thank you Ian [Ian Whiting, Titania CEO and Founder]. It’s an honour to be the guest of Titania. I’m also pleased that we’re joined by other members of the Malvern Cyber Security Cluster, including 3DSL, Sutcliffe & Co, DRisQ, Advent IM and Borwell.

When I tell people about this exciting concentration of innovative cyber companies in this corner of Worcestershire, they often look a bit puzzled, as if this part of the country is just about rolling hills and the music of Elgar. But it’s fast becoming Britain’s Cyber Valley.

When I first visited I think there were about 45 firms – now there are nearer 75 across the region. You’re growing all the time, winning new contracts and taking on new staff or moving to larger premises, with Titania a case in point.

So it’s a huge privilege to be asked to open your new offices. I’d like to congratulate Ian, who I know was recently recognised at the 2014 National Computing Security Awards, but also the whole team here. You’ve achieved so much in just a few years and the future for Titania is very bright indeed.

Sometimes when people in Whitehall talk about growth, it can seem like an abstract concept - but it’s real and it’s happening right here, which is why I keep coming back. This is place is a fantastic success story – for Worcester and for Britain – and we need to be shouting about it from the rooftops.

I have 2 main points to make today.

Growth

The first is about the opportunity cyber presents for jobs and growth. When we talk about the cyber security we like to make it sound dark and menacing, because we want people and businesses to take notice and protect themselves online. But, as we here know, cyber security shouldn’t be seen as a necessary evil. Malvern has shown very clearly that this is also a growth business in its own right, presenting a massive opportunity.

Cyber security craves technical innovation and entrepreneurial ambition, backed by world-class skills and research – all of which the UK has in spades. We are good at this as a country, you are good at this, and when I visit other countries they know it too.

Cyber Growth Partnership

The UK’s cyber sector already employs some 40,000 people and is worth £6 billion and rising, but I want to see it grow further. That’s why government and business have teamed up to create the Cyber Growth Partnership, which already represents a cross section of the UK cyber-security sector, including SMEs.

Titania is one of the board members and is an active supporter of our efforts to promote UK cyber capability.

Dr Emma Philpott

I’d like to thank and congratulate Dr Emma Philpott, who is with us today on the work she does to bring the various partners together in Malvern. Such is the success of the Malvern Cluster that we want to replicate it across the country.

With the support of funding from the National Cyber Security Programme, Emma is now spreading her magic by helping to bring together clusters in other areas such as Cardiff, Cambridge, Bristol, London, Edinburgh, Southampton and Brighton.

Cyber Connect

I should also mention a complementary NCSP-funded project called Cyber Connect, run by Andy Williams for techUK.

One of the project’s objectives is to map the UK cyber security sector for the first time, with a particular emphasis on SMEs. This will help enormously when buyers, both domestically and overseas, want to know what the UK has to offer.

International market

The global cyber security market is growing by more than 10% a year and we want Britain to be part of that. I understand that Titania supplies software to customers in over 60 countries, which shows the potential market for UK cyber expertise and products.

That’s why we’ve produced the first ever Cyber Exports Strategy. Exporting £2 billion worth of products and services annually by 2016 is our goal and a sharp increase on the £850 million we sold last year.

Cyber Security Suppliers’ Scheme

One of the ways in which the government is supporting you is through the new Cyber Security Suppliers’ scheme. It enables businesses to demonstrate to potential customers overseas that they are a supplier of cyber products and services to the UK government. We listened to the SME members of the Cyber Growth Partnership who wanted such a scheme. It should be a real advantage in a competitive market, and this has already been taken up by several SMEs in the Malvern cluster including Titania.

Cyber Essentials Scheme

There’s also the Cyber Essentials scheme, which we launched in the summer. The scheme helps businesses protect themselves against the most common cyber threats.

This gives businesses clarity on good basic cyber security practice and will provide protection against the most common threats.

And after going through a certification process, businesses will be able to show they have the right measures in place by displaying the Cyber Essentials badge, which we hope becomes the cyber equivalent of the MOT certificate.

As I said, our international partners are envious of our cyber skills and creativity. In the past year, I’ve discussed cyber security with my counterparts from as far afield as India and Israel, Spain and South Korea and it’s clear that the phrase ‘Made in Britain’ has enormous resonance.

My message to them is simple – UK business is strong, competitive and innovative and is ready to work with you.

Skills

My second point is about skills.

If we’re going to enhance the UK’s cyber resilience – and grow our cyber businesses – then we need to ensure we have the right people with the right skills coming into the workforce.

Cyber Security Challenge

Earlier this year, I opened the final of the 2014 Cyber Security Challenge. Funded jointly by government, academia and business, it’s a fantastic way of demonstrating the value of cyber security as a career opportunity to as wide an audience as possible and it has attracted over 2000 new joiners this year alone.

It also enables employers and talented individuals to meet – almost 1 in 3 of those who reach the final stage of the competition go on to find work in cyber security.

Apprenticeships

We’re also partnering with e-skills UK, training providers and industry to develop new cyber programmes to match private sector needs and increase apprenticeships. We have over 120 cyber apprentices at GCHQ alone.

I know many of the companies here are small – but you can also set a powerful example to young people. There’s an element of glamour and excitement to your work, it’s a success story, and so you can inspire young people by demonstrating the kind of career opportunities that exist in cyber security.

So I’m particularly pleased and grateful that Titania supports cyber apprenticeships and is working in partnership with Worcester University to promote cyber security as a career choice. I’d like to thank Worcester University for all their support.

Conclusion

To conclude, you already know the UK has a fantastic heritage of innovation and expertise in computer science, from Charles Babbage with his 1820s ‘Difference Engine’, through Alan Turing and Bletchley Park right up to modern day internet pioneers.

That heritage is alive and kicking here today in Worcester.

The UK is already punching above its weight in cyber space, partly because of the achievements of the businesses here today. And we’re going to continue to do that.

But there is still a huge opportunity out there. Tim Berners-Lee gave the World Wide Web to the world in a way that was open so anyone could use it to expand and grow. This is a strength for Britain – and we’re determined to seize the opportunities that the digital age presents to innovate, create and deliver.

Working with colleagues from the Cabinet Office, Parliament and the Legislation team at the National Archives, the Office of the Parliamentary Counsel has helped to develop a proposed new format for explanatory notes. The new format aims to make them accessible in a user friendly form across multiple platforms.

You can also read an HTML version of the explanatory notes.

These explanatory notes relate to the Armed Forces (Service Complaints and Financial Assistance) Bill.

Troy Da Silva, Loshell Coke, Loretta Yussuff and Abigail Jarrett participated in the Spending Challenge, one of the events for Parliament Week at the Cabinet Office. Afterwards they shared their thoughts on the experience:

On Monday, our Politics class was invited to the Cabinet Office to learn more about how government departments set their annual budgets.

We gathered with students from other schools at Admiralty House. The surroundings — the paintings, statues and eighteenth century furniture — really gave us a sense of the history and significance of the Cabinet Office and helped us get into our roles as ministers for the day. It was also helpful in another way. As we were about to discover, we were about to go into battle!

We met several influential figures in the civil service who have played key roles in departments such as the Ministry of Defence and the Department of Health, one of whom was Francis Maude, the Minister for the Cabinet Office who told us that running government should be “like running a business” as departments should not be encouraged to spend money unless it offers real value to the taxpayer. With that in mind, we approached the main task of the day.

We had to negotiate our department’s budget with a team of students standing in for the Treasury. We had a group of real civil servants on hand to make sure things ran smoothly. Our team took the role of the Department of Health. We had to come up with a budget to help improve the NHS. During this time we were able to initially negotiate different saving methods with each other and decide which ones we want to take to the ministers and which ones are going to be decoys. We adopted a strategy of coming into the first session with an introductory speech to explain how our department was the most important in government.

We then proposed different spending plans and rank ordered our proposals to save money, explaining the importance of each proposal. We came to compromise on which ones will best benefit both the government and the people.

Our negotiation was successful as we had a baseline budget of £85 billion, which is what we hoped to achieve due to our negotiation skills. We were able to avoid compromising on any saving and spending methods while being able to achieve the £85 billion we needed in order to run a successful department without cutting into the 1.7 million jobs in the NHS.

We learned a lot. We learned how government departments tackle budgets through strict and heated negotiations and how this benefits the country as a whole. We learned different political parties’ views on how to manage the budget for different government departments such as Health and Education. It was also evident how important the civil service is in supporting ministers; how their advice provides clarity between proposed policies. We also gathered how much departments such as the health service influence our daily lives. We had no idea, for example, that the NHS treats an average of 3 million patients a week.

The overall experience made us more likely to vote when we turn 18 as it gave us an insight into party policies and how they impact on voting behaviour on certain policies such as those fronted by the UK’s Department of Health.

You can also follow @RHCabinetOffice or #goodlaw on Twitter.

Read a blog post from Richard Heaton on progress on the Good Law initiative 9 months after its launch.

Confirmation matches the names and addresses of records on all Electoral Registration Officers’ (EROs) current electoral registers against data held by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).

Confirmation is an important part of the move to Individual Electoral Registration (IER), changing how people register to vote. Confirmation allows EROs to transfer existing electors who are successfully matched onto the first IER register: this will simplify the transition for most people.

This report was announced on 21 October 2014 and sets out the findings from confirmation in England and Wales.

The introduction of Individual Electoral Registration (IER) in Great Britain will modernise the way people register to vote, help to tackle electoral fraud and improve confidence in the electoral register.

Since 10 June 2014, everyone can register to vote using the new system. You’ll be asked for your date of birth and National Insurance number. These details are checked against government records to help make sure that registrations are genuine.

To support Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) in delivering the transition to IER, the Electoral Commission have published guidance, including ministerial guidance.

In December 2013 the government published guidance to help departments make decisions about their telephone prefixes.

This report sets out HMRC’s progress towards implementing key principles in the December 2013 guidance.

What is social action

The Centre for Social Action supports programmes that encourage people to create positive change through social action.

Social action can broadly be defined as practical action in the service of others, which is:

• carried out by individuals or groups of people working together
• not mandated and not for profit
• done for the good of others - individuals, communities and/or society
• bringing about social change and/or value

Social action can include formal or informal volunteering, the giving of time and money or simply people helping people.

The government originally set out its intentions on how to promote social action in the:

• Giving green paper
• Giving white paper

Centre for Social Action objectives

The Centre for Social Action aims to identify and accelerate the development of spread of high impact social action initiatives. This objective is achieved by:

1. Identifying social action innovators.
2. Supporting organisations with promising initiatives to scale up and become sustainable.
3. Developing the evidence base on the impact of social action-based interventions.
4. Working with policy makers and those delivering public services to help them understand the contribution that individuals and communities can make.
5. Mobilising large numbers of volunteers by making the ask appealing and the act easy.
6. Supporting the development of a modern and effective infrastructure to support social action.

Priority thematic areas

The centre’s priority areas have been chosen to reflect the government’s priorities, where there is a plausible role for social action to be part of the solution. The initial areas of focus are:

• supporting people to age well and live independently for longer
• improving health outcomes and wellbeing
• supporting young potential
• creating stronger and safer communities
• contributing to prosperity, by eg reducing the cost of living and developing employment

The centre also aims to develop a modern and effective infrastructure to support individuals and communities to be more engaged and take part in addressing the issues that matter to them.

Types of projects supported by the centre

Through the centre we plan to fund projects that:

• are able to demonstrate a positive impact on the desired outcomes and contribute to the centre’s objectives. Initiatives funded by the centre will normally be able to fulfil at least level 2 of Nesta’s standards of evidence for impact investment
• use social action as a key element and a driver of the positive impact achieved by the initiative
• can demonstrate financial sustainability through a strong management team, a track record of deliverability and a credible plan about how the initiative will be funded in the medium/long term
• are ambitious in their reach, whether in terms of the amount of people they involve and benefit, or the depth of the impact they affect

The Centre for Social Action can support public services, charities, social enterprises and for profit businesses provided they can demonstrate that their projects will deliver public benefit. We can support incorporated entities and unincorporated associations with formal membership structures, but not individuals.

New ways of working

The Centre for Social Action seeks to work in new ways with government departments and with external stakeholders.

Based in Cabinet Office, the centre will work closely with other government departments, local authorities and policy makers to explore innovative ways in which social action initiatives can be integrated as part of the solution to some of the most intractable social issues.

We are also working in innovative ways with Nesta, the UK’s leading innovation foundation, and our partner in the design and delivery of the Centre for Social Action. Both organisations are working closely together to build on our mutual strengths to maximise the impact and reach of the centre.

Funding streams

The centre has a number of funding streams that contribute towards its objectives. The current funding streams are:

• reducing winter pressures on hospital through social action– the Social Investment Business Group Reduce Pressure in Hospitals fund provides 2 million funding to increase and support existing programmes during winter 2014 to 2015
• follow on funding for Social Action Fund (SAF) projects– this funding stream builds on the strength of some of our SAF assets, linking them to the centre’s objectives and priorities
• Innovation Fund– for interventions seeking funding between £50,000 and £500,000 in 3 of our 5 initial priority areas (ageing well, improving health outcomes and young potential)
• Youth Social Action Fund– this focuses on social action initiatives for young people with trials running in Birmingham, Middlesbrough, Lancashire and Kent
• Vulnerable Young People Fund– this supports young people in vulnerable circumstances through social action
• Rehabilitation Social Action Fund– for organisations with a strong track record in using social action to rehabilitate offenders; this fund contributes to the stronger and safer communities priority area
• future online infrastructure– to choose a new host for the searchable volunteering database Do-it
• Carers Social Action Support Fund– for social action projects that support family carers
• Community Organisers’ Social Action Fund– to test, develop and show evidence for social action projects inspired through the government’s Community Organisers programme
• Social Action End of Life Support Fund– for projects that use social action to support people at end of life and their families

We are in the process of developing other funding streams in the centre’s other priority areas.

All proposals funded by the centre will need to comply with our funding criteria. The final decision on funding for projects will need to be agreed by the centre’s steering group and approved by the Minister for Civil Society.

Community energy

Community Energy Peer Mentoring Fund

The Centre for Social Action, together with DECC, is launching a new £0.5 million Community Energy Peer Mentoring Fund which aims to:

• enable communities and energy groups to receive peer-to-peer support and advice to get started with community energy projects
• capture and share best practice, successes and lessons learnt
• create a user-friendly evaluation method which can be shared

The fund is supporting partnerships and consortia of community energy groups getting together to mentor and work with each other.

The Community Energy Peer Mentoring Fund closed on 12 December 2013. Read about the successful organisations and some of the projects they will carry out.

EDF Energy supports this initiative and will provide the groups with free mentoring support in business management.

Social Action Energy Pilots and Playbook Fund

We are running pilots in 6 housing associations with residents testing social action approaches and 3 different behavioural levers: incentives, competition and social norms. The pilots aim to reduce energy use and save people money on their energy bills.

The pilots will help build our evidence base on community-led approaches to energy use and support more sustainable social action. The Centre for Social Action developed the pilots, in partnership with DECC, and Global Action Plan is providing the training. Findings from the pilots will feed into a ‘playbook’ of best practice which will be available online. This will help other projects to learn from and reuse the most effective approaches.

The pilots were launched at the end of February 2014 in 6 housing associations:

• Aster Communities and Synergy Housing
• Newlon Fusion/Newlon Housing Trust
• Gentoo Group
• Poplar HARCA
• The Riverside Group
• Community Gateway

Social Action Fund follow on funding

The Social Action Fund (SAF) ran from 2011 to 2013 and helped 40 programmes to increase their social action activities. Over half a million new volunteers were recruited through SAF.

In October 2013 we awarded approximately £3 million more to 7 programmes through SAF follow on funding:

• BeatBullying
• CSV The Professionals
• IntoUniversity
• The Reading Agency
• Tearfund
• StreetGames
• Uprising

Innovation Fund

The Innovation Fund is a £14 million fund run by Nesta, the UK innovation foundation, working in partnership with the Cabinet Office. The Innovation Fund provides financial support of between £50,000 to £500,000 to individual ventures or programmes, usually in the form of grants.

Of the 5 current priority areas for the centre, the Innovation Fund is funding interventions in 4 areas:

• supporting people to age well and live independently longer
• improving health outcomes and wellbeing
• supporting young potential
• supporting and encouraging young people to succeed and find employment

The Innovation Fund is also looking for innovations that use new approaches to ‘impact volunteering’ to mobilise volunteers to increase and enhance the outcomes achieved by public services.

The fund has closed to new expressions of interest. We expect to include further areas for innovation in due course.

Step Up To Serve and Youth Social Action

Step Up to Serve (SUTS) launched on 21 November 2013 at Buckingham Palace with HRH The Prince of Wales. SUTS aims to double the number of young people aged 10 to 20 participating in social action by 2020.

The Cabinet Office is also supporting youth social action through 3 funds:

Youth Social Action Fund (YSAF)

YSAF opened in June 2013, offering financial support to social action programmes in Birmingham, Middlesbrough, Lancashire and Kent. £5 million has been awarded to 30 programmes, £4 million from the Cabinet Office Centre for Social Action and £1 million from the Education Endowment Foundation. These programmes will build the evidence base for social action on educational, emotional and personal outcomes for young people.

Youth Social Action Passports and Awards Fund

This fund includes £125,000 for a social action passport and awards scheme to support the YSAF trials. This will help develop a common, universal way to record and reward social action activity so that it is recognised by businesses and education. This fund closed in October 2013; successful bidders are joining the YSAF trial programmes.

Youth Social Action Journey Fund

This fund opened nationwide in October 2013, offering £6 million over 2 years. It will help organisations to:

• increase the number of young people aged 10 to 20 taking part in meaningful social action
• embed National Citizen Service (NCS) in the social action journey of the young people with whom they work

11 programmes have been awarded this funding. See more information about the successful bidders for these funds.

Rehabilitation Social Action Fund

Social action plays an important role in reducing reoffending. We have awarded £2.4 million to 12 organisations to increase support for ex-offenders to stop committing crime and transform their lives. Read more about the grant recipients and the social action programmes they will carry out.

Future online infrastructure

The centre is supporting the development of the online and offline infrastructure for social action, and is currently working with YouthNet to develop and find a new host for the searchable volunteering database Do-it. Bidding to host this project has now closed.

Community Organisers’ Social Action Fund

This £200,000 fund is run by Locality to test, develop and show evidence for a range of social action projects provided by communities for communities. It will develop some of the most promising community-led social action projects that have been supported by people who have completed the government’sCommunity Organisers programme. Find out more about which projects have been funded.

Carers Social Action Fund

The Carers Social Action Support Fund invests in social action programmes that support unpaid, family carers. It will run from November 2014 to October 2015. The projects were announced on 28 November 2014 as follows:

• Age UK Buckinghamshire – carers of people with dementia will be matched with volunteers who will provide personalised emotional and practical support
• British Red Cross Shropshire will match volunteers with young adult carers, aged 18 to 25. By giving them a break from their caring role, volunteers will enable young adult carers to attend a volunteer led course incorporating life skills and confidence building
• Carers Trust Cambridgeshire – volunteers will be trained as Carer Friends and Carer Ambassadors. This will improve carer awareness and lead to higher numbers of carers identified across Cambridgeshire and Peterborough
• Devon Carers/Westbank Community Care – carers and ex-carers will be mobilised to support each other through carer ‘buddying’ and peer support groups
• Parkinson’s UK will expand and tailor self management groups for carers of people with Parkinson’s. Volunteer facilitators with experience of Parkinson’s themselves run the groups, which bring carers together to support each other, offering practical tools to support carers in their caring role
• Shared Lives Plus will work with 12 local partner organisations to enable Shared Lives carers to provide breaks to more unpaid family carers
• Thirsk Community Care – in Yorkshire, older carers will benefit from an expanded volunteer sitting service for carers. Volunteers will enable older carers across York and North Yorkshire to take a break from their caring role by sitting with the cared for

A carer is anyone who looks after, unpaid, a friend or family member who cannot cope without their support. This may be due to illness, disability, a mental health problem or an addiction.

Carers

There are 5.4 million carers in England and 1 in 3 of us will become a carer at some point in our lives. Carers providing round the clock care are more than twice as likely to be in bad health as non-carers (Census, 2011). 70% of carers caring for 50 hours or more a week have a long-standing health condition, compared to 51% of non-carers (GP Patient Survey 2013).

About the fund

The Carers Social Action Support Fund of up to £1 million is part of the Centre for Social Action. The fund will be run by the Social Investment Business (SIB) on behalf of the Cabinet Office. We asked organisations with a social mission who provided public services, that were looking to build on, or adapt, inspiring social action projects for carers to apply for funding.

The funding, announced on Carers’ Rights Day will help the volunteering programmes provide crucial support for unpaid family carers.

The £700,000 investment recognises the impact volunteers, including carers supporting each other, can make on carers feeling supported in their caring role. This can allow them to take a break, share their experiences of caring or get practical and emotional support.

The organisations receiving funding for social action programmes to support unpaid family carers are:

• Age UK Buckinghamshire - £90,000
• British Red Cross - £80,000
• Carers Trust Cambridgeshire - £100,000
• Devon Carers - £140,000
• Parkinson’s UK - £50,000
• Shared Lives Plus - £130,000
• Thirsk Community Care - £110,000

British Red Cross in Shropshire will use the funding to match volunteers with young adult carers aged 18 to 25. This will give them a break from their caring role. The young adult carers can also to attend a volunteer led course to develop life skills and build their confidence.

Parkinson’s UK will expand and tailor self management groups for carers of people with Parkinson’s. Volunteer facilitators with experience of Parkinson’s run the groups, offering practical support tools and enabling carers to support each other.

Minister for Civil Society Rob Wilson said:

I am delighted to announce the winners of the Carers Social Action Support Fund. These projects showcase the potential of social action to support carers in their caring role.

From enabling isolated older carers to take time out from caring, to equipping young adult carers with key life skills, social action can make a real difference to people carrying out this incredibly important role.

The fund will be administered by the Social Investment Business on behalf of the Cabinet Office. The Carers Social Action Support Fund was open for applications from 22 September to 22 October.

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In line with UK government commitments to increase transparency, we are now publishing details of spend over £25,000 since 1 April 2010 and over £500 from 1 April 2011. We will continue to publish this data on a monthly basis.

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