DCMS Grant : contingency plans?

[John Upham]

In the event that the Government (in the likely wake of future cut-backs) removes the DCMS grant to the ECF, what contingency plans are in place to deal with this?

Clearly the virtualisation(?) of the ECF Office must be one of them.

Does anyone have any concrete knowledge of the plans? Would money be drawn from one of SRs "little pots of gold"?

How much would be saved by closing the Battle office and converting the staff to connected home workers?

[Paul McKeown]

John,

Your concern seems eminently sensible. The British Government has huge debts and at some stage will have to cut spending: I can't imagine huge political consequences for the Government of the day in axing financial support for chess. At least the DCMS grant is piddling (in terms of government spending) and might therefore be overlooked.

Virtualisation is entirely sensible, even without the idea of reducing salary and expenses costs, as it would enable ECF directors, managers and employees to work in a more flexible manner and presumably would make it easier for people who are currently put off doing stuff for the ECF by the journey to Hastings, to consider contributing their talents and energies.

I doubt it will happen soon, and certainly not as a single integrated project.

Regards,
Paul McKeown.

[Kevin Thurlow]

The company for which I work, (which used to be a Government Department but was privatised) still does win a fair amount of Government-funded work. However, it is getting more difficult to get money out of them (despite our expertise and experience etc).

For example, it has been alleged that the Rover bail-out meant that the then DTI had less money to spend on other things, so some programmes were reduced or stopped. Also they started funding schemes that were supposed to train people, so they could improve themselves, with the obvious idea they could cut funding later.

So if a department has spent its money on something else, they are going to cut support somewhere, or change the reason for the funding. (E.g fund the infrastructure one year so that you can then keep running the project without further funding from them, although you will need it from somewhere) So there is always a threat that funding will disappear, you have to make a really good case every time, use the right buzzwords and ensure that your financial management is beyond reproach...

However, this was all true when I first raised it at Council about ten years ago, so try not to have nightmares.

[Matt Harrison]

The current public spending round runs to March 2011. The next CSR (under whichever political party is in govt at the time) is likely to be brutal, especially for anything outside health, education or defence. The ECF will be needing to plan for a 25% - 100% cut in funding. The organisation I work for is looking at 25% and 50% scenarios right now.

[John Upham]

Let us assume that the DCMS grant is withdrawn, what do you feel would be the best course of action (assuming the ECF is caught on the hop and not planned for this happening)?

[Sean Hewitt]

Well, you could always double game fee

[Simon Brown]

Don't you have to have plans before you have contingency plans?

[John Philpott]

Simon Brown wrote

Don't you have to have plans before you have contingency plans?

About 8 hours before Simon made this comment a draft of the long term strategic plan that will be considered by the AGM was posted on the ECF website at http://www.englishchess.org.uk/index.ph ... &Itemid=28

[Carl Hibbard]

Simon Brown wrote

Don't you have to have plans before you have contingency plans?

About 8 hours before Simon made this comment a draft of the long term strategic plan that will be considered by the AGM was posted on the ECF website at http://www.englishchess.org.uk/index.ph ... &Itemid=28

Struth that's a hard one to find, where is the link for that off the main site?

[John Philpott]

Carl Hibbard wrote

Struth that's a hard one to find, where is the link for that off the main site?

At the bottom of the Home page there are four buttons for "About us, Vacancies, Privacy Policy, Refunds & Returns Policy". Clicking the "About us" button produces three further options:

1. Council & Board, which currently just contains the draft Strategic Plan and the notice relating to Direct Members Representatives, but which by the end of next week will hopefully contain a great deal more.

2. ECF General Information & Documents which contains the Articles, Bye Laws, Regulations, etc.

3. Minutes, which currently just contains a draft of the April 2009 Finance Council minutes.

There is currently an easy link from the home page to the draft Strategic Plan in the "Latest updates" section, but that will probably drop off in the next few days.

[John Upham]

Here we go!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8255938.stm

[Paul McKeown]

Of course, could one really defend a government spending money on chess, even as a chess player, when the national debt is of such overwhelming proportions? The last time the government of the day took on such financial commitments, the war period from 1940-44, it took until well into the second Blair term of office, 60 years later, before the financing was finally repaid.

[Carl Hibbard]

Carl Hibbard wrote

Struth that's a hard one to find, where is the link for that off the main site?

At the bottom of the Home page there are four buttons for "About us, Vacancies, Privacy Policy, Refunds & Returns Policy". Clicking the "About us" button produces three further options:

1. Council & Board, which currently just contains the draft Strategic Plan and the notice relating to Direct Members Representatives, but which by the end of next week will hopefully contain a great deal more.

2. ECF General Information & Documents which contains the Articles, Bye Laws, Regulations, etc.

3. Minutes, which currently just contains a draft of the April 2009 Finance Council minutes.

There is currently an easy link from the home page to the draft Strategic Plan in the "Latest updates" section, but that will probably drop off in the next few days.

Needs to be more prominent I think?

I have pasted in the minutes of the last AGM report into a new thread in case the main ECF site is changed and things become even harder to find as they are moved around

[Matthew Turner]

I do not know how likely it is that the DCMS grant will be cut/lost. It may be that £65,000 is just so small that it flies under the Government radar. However, if the grant were to be lost I suggest the following action would be taken

1. The Office would lose a member of staff (this is more than justifiable, because the expected Chess for Schools workload has not materialised)

2. The Junior budget would be cut (probably to effectively zero)

3. Other budgets would be cut less severely, although the International budget might fare badly if the new Director is less able to defend his position

4. Game fee would rise 20% with further rises planned

However, this is unlikely to fully meet the shortfall, so some creativity would be required. John Robinson funds would be used to pay for the Office. This would work by the interest going directly into the junior budget. The junior budget would then have to pay for Office time (for arranging flights, accommodation etc. at events).

This would probably work for a few years, but in the medium term, there would probably need to be more fundamental changes, because there would be no leeway remaining in the finances.

[John Upham]

and

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8255938.stm