The government is to axe a £3m programme to provide small sums of money to individuals to run community activities.

The decision is likely to affect some of England’s most disadvantaged communities, and comes despite prime minister Gordon Brown’s recent praise for those who gave their time ‘to build a better society for us all’.

The community champions programme has provided up to £2,000 to around 10,000 individuals around England since 2000, with many services and activities targeted at disadvantaged groups, such as the disabled or refugees.

An evaluation of the programme for the then Department of Education and Skills found it provided ‘substantial benefit’, with each £1m spent supporting 600 community activists, encouraging more than 5,000 others to volunteer and benefiting more than 33,000 people in total.

Over a third of those selected as champions had significantly increased their skills, particularly in areas of communication, organisation and project management.

But the programme is to end next March because, according to the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCFS), ‘the government is moving away from centrally-driven programmes’ in favour of ‘agreeing outcomes and devolving funding to local authorities’.

However, the DCSF claimed local strategic partnerships would ‘certainly want to consider if support for individuals along the lines of community champions can play a part in strategies for community involvement’.

But Dorothy Newton, the London director of the Scarman Trust, one of the charities managing the fund, said the government was wrong to scrap a fund which provided ‘a tremendous boost to people’s self confidence and esteem’ and was good value for money.

Despite DCFS reassurance, she said local strategic partnerships were unlikely to bear the administrative burden required to provide small sums of money to individuals.

The loss of the fund – the only programme providing modest grants to individuals as opposed to groups – would be most keenly felt at neighbourhood level and could have unforeseen knock-on effects, she added.

Most community champions in London, for example, had taken their projects further by creating organisations or social enterprises.

by Lee Baker
news@newstartmag.co.uk