The minister for civil society has announced £3m of funding for community organisations in the UK, while questions were raised about funding for charities post-Brexit.
Funding has been provided through the Place Based Social Action Scheme and was announced in parliament yesterday by Mims Davies MP. In her speech she said that £2.3m will be allocated to 10 community groups that tackle local issues. These include The Onion Collective, a community organisation based in Somerset and Lincoln Hometown Football Club.
The remaining £770,000 will be used to boost fundraising projects based in Bristol.
She said: “This investment in communities the length and breadth of the country will help even more people take action on the issues they care about most, including helping more volunteering, giving more money directly to local causes that people feel connected with in their community and supporting even more simple neighbourly acts, which can mean so much.”
The speech also set out her priorities for the voluntary sector: building communities that are connected, responsible business to tackle social issues and creating opportunities for young people to contribute to their communities.
"We want to create the conditions for a bold and bright future in which civil society is able to play an even greater role than it does today," she added.
She indicated that recipients of a further £1.3m Innovation in Democracy Programme will be announced in the spring, which will be used to help improve participation in local authority decisions.
Shared prosperity fund
In response to Davies's comments, Steve Reed, Labour's shadow minister for civil society, raised the issue of the UK shared prosperity fund, which was announced to cover the cost of EU funded projects until 2020.
He said: "We are a month and a half away from Brexit, but the government have still not told us how they will replace lost EU funding for charities or how the shared prosperity fund will work, despite the fact that the opposition have been asking about it for months."
A consultation on the fund failed to emerge last year, as was originally planned, but Davies did not provide any clarification on when it will now launch.
|
Editor's note: 18 February
This article has been updated to clarify that new money was provided through an existing programme.
Related articles
