ON THE face of it the announcement of new funding for charities being hit by the cuts is good news, but you are left wondering why the grand-sounding Transition Fund is necessary.

Much of this fund is being set up to help charities prepare for losing some of their core funding.

But surely it is over-complicating the matter hugely.

No doubt the wallahs in Whitehall would dismiss this as too simplistic but these bodies are losing a lot of taxpayer-sourced funding.

We are told these cuts are necessary as part of the overall recovery needed for the country’s finances.

Yet the Transition Fund is dealing in tens of millions of pounds, all of it coming from the taxpayer.

Why take away with one hand and then give with another?

Would it not make more sense to cut the funding streams by a smaller amount but at least leave the Transition Fund money in the original sources?

But then it would not give the Government the upside of positive PR to soften the blow about reducing funding to so many good causes.