Written Question · S5W-28798 · Session 5
How organisations apply for funding from the Supporting Communities Fund.
The question
To ask the Scottish Government how organisations apply for funding from the Supporting Communities Fund.
The answer
On 18 March, I announced an investment of £350 million to support local communities and households in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The investment comprises a range of funds to be delivered using a combination of approaches to ensure that resource is mobilised quickly to the places and people where it is needed. These approaches include funding delivered through Local Authorities and open bid funds such as the Community Wellbeing Fund and Third Sector Resilience Fund.
The Supporting Communities Fund, established with an initial £20m investment, is not an open bid fund. Instead it takes a targeted funding approach, providing funding to a range of community anchor organisations (CAO) who in turn can distribute funds to a wider network of community groups. CAOs are organisations that are or can work locally to connect activity and resources within the community and with statutory partners to help ensure funding reaches the people and places that need it. Many of these organisations have existing connections and networks in their communities and are already responding to the COVID crisis. The support from the funding is enabling CAOs to expand their networks to wider neighbourhoods and communities, partnering with other local community groups. Through this approach CAOs are helping to reach groups actively responding to COVID that would not otherwise directly be able to access funds themselves, and deliver support for the priorities identified by communities.
We are working with a range of national community development and community-led regeneration partners, to identify the initial group of anchor organisations, drawing on collective knowledge and experience of organisations that have track record in delivering services and responding to challenges.
A second phase of the funding has commenced, engaging with an extended group of partners including Third Sector Interfaces and Local Authorities to help address where there may be gaps in current provision and where there remains a need for support. Additional guidance to support these partners is being developed and provided as needed to support this next phase of the fund, which will include information to support signposting community organisations to the support available locally and through the fund.
The investment comprises a range of funds to be delivered using a combination of approaches to ensure that resource is mobilised quickly to the places and people where it is needed. These approaches include funding delivered through Local Authorities and open bid funds such as the Community Wellbeing Fund and Third Sector Resilience Fund.
The Supporting Communities Fund, established with an initial £20m investment, is not an open bid fund. Instead it takes a targeted funding approach, providing funding to a range of community anchor organisations (CAO) who in turn can distribute funds to a wider network of community groups. CAOs are organisations that are or can work locally to connect activity and resources within the community and with statutory partners to help ensure funding reaches the people and places that need it. Many of these organisations have existing connections and networks in their communities and are already responding to the COVID crisis. The support from the funding is enabling CAOs to expand their networks to wider neighbourhoods and communities, partnering with other local community groups. Through this approach CAOs are helping to reach groups actively responding to COVID that would not otherwise directly be able to access funds themselves, and deliver support for the priorities identified by communities.
We are working with a range of national community development and community-led regeneration partners, to identify the initial group of anchor organisations, drawing on collective knowledge and experience of organisations that have track record in delivering services and responding to challenges.
A second phase of the funding has commenced, engaging with an extended group of partners including Third Sector Interfaces and Local Authorities to help address where there may be gaps in current provision and where there remains a need for support. Additional guidance to support these partners is being developed and provided as needed to support this next phase of the fund, which will include information to support signposting community organisations to the support available locally and through the fund.
In the Official Report
No contribution in the Official Report cites S5W-28798 by reference.