News article

The Big Lottery Fund has published further guidelines on how the Building Better Opportunities Programme will operate.

Subject to approval from the European Commission later this year, the Big Lottery Fund is planning to put up to £260 million of Lottery funds against a similar figure from the European Social Fund (ESF) 2014-2020 in order to support communities and people most in need across England.

Funding will be available for projects delivering against the ‘Promoting Social Inclusion and Combating Poverty’ part of ESF. The funding will be delivered in Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) areas according to local priorities, which have been set by the LEPs.

Applications will need to be made in response to one of the project outlines which will describe each specific funding opportunity that is available through the programme and set out what each project aims to achieve and the areas or groups of people that it needs to target. Funding will only be available for one project per project outline. Although each project outline will be different, there are five key principles that unite them.

Projects must:

• Help the most disadvantaged - some groups of people are more disadvantaged than others when it comes to finding work and it is these individuals that Building Better Opportunities aspires to help.
• Tackle social exclusion - rather than just treating the symptoms, projects must help address the root causes of poverty and exclusion that are barriers to an individual seeking work.
• Be focused on the capabilities of each individual - projects are expected to build on people's strengths by developing their skills and talents to help them overcome the challenges they face.
• Lead to better coordinated services - in the main, services will need to be delivered in partnership between organisations that already have expertise in working with those most in need.
• Create new opportunities for work - it is therefore essential that there is engagement with employers to ensure there are pathways for people to progress into work.

Projects are expected to be delivered by partnerships and lead organisations should have:

• A clear vision for responding to the priorities of the local area, backed up by appropriate expertise.
• A proven track record of managing complex projects, relative to the size of any partnership and the amount of money involved.
• Good connections for ensuring a wide cross section of organisations are able to get involved.
• Strategies for managing and coordinating any partnership throughout the planning, set-up and delivery of the project.

Funding is expected to be available from Summer 2015.

BIG have published  a project outline for each specific funding opportunity that will be available through Building Better Opportunities. 

---

External Link

• Building Better Opportunities