A new £7 million
fund to support trailblazing approaches to building more integrated communities
in England has been launched.
The Integrated
Communities Innovation Fund will help drive forward the proposals to tackle
the key causes of poor integration set out in the government’s Integrated
Communities Strategy green paper launched in March 2018.
The new Innovation
Fund aims to support similar trailblazing projects that will share their
learning more widely, allowing other areas to develop proven approaches to
tackling the key causes of poor integration.
The Government is inviting
applications to support approaches which help build integrated communities.
This includes projects that use sport and physical activity to encourage
integration. The government will be working in partnership with Sport England,
which is contributing to the new Integrated Communities Innovation Fund, to
support projects of this type.
The consultation on
the government’s Integrated Communities Strategy green paper closed on 5 June
2018. Over 3,500 responses were received from a wide variety of organisations
and individuals clearly demonstrating the widespread commitment to building stronger
communities across the country. The government will respond to the consultation
later this year.
Jennie Price, CEO of
Sport England, said: "I’m very pleased that Sport England is working
closely with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to
achieve our shared objective of improving integration to strengthen
communities.
"We believe
sport and physical activity is a powerful way of bringing together people from
all backgrounds and strengthening the bonds between them."
The green paper sets
out that organisations that work closely with communities must be bold and
innovative in order to tackle some of the most difficult integration challenges
and that knowledge of what works should be shared.
To support this aim
the government is today also announcing support for a new Cohesion and
Integration Network. This will bring together organisations and individuals
from across national and local government, business, and voluntary and
community groups to share their ideas, knowledge and experience.
