{"id":9533,"date":"2015-02-11T11:02:59","date_gmt":"2015-02-11T11:02:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ihbconline.co.uk\/newsachive\/?p=9533"},"modified":"2015-02-11T11:02:59","modified_gmt":"2015-02-11T11:02:59","slug":"sg-people-and-communities-fund-increased-to-15-million","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/?p=9533","title":{"rendered":"SG People and Communities Fund increased to \u00a315 million"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">The Scottish Government (SG) has increased the People and Communities Fund by a further <\/span><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">\u00a35.6 million funding, which will allow more groups in areas of socio-economic deprivation to access funding for training, employment and community needs, including helping people to have more \u2018say\u2019 in their community development.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">The Scottish Government writes:<br \/>\n<\/span>A fund which gives community groups the power to tackle poverty and inequalities in their areas has been given a \u00a35.6 million funding boost.<\/p>\n<p>Social Justice Secretary Alex Neil confirmed community-led regeneration will be given extra support through the People and Communities Fund (PCF), on a visit to the Broomhouse Health Strategy Group in Edinburgh.\u00a0 The People and Communities Fund will be increased from \u00a39.4 million to \u00a315 million as it benefits from support through the dedicated \u00a310 million funding for Empowering Communities announced by the First Minister last November. This investment builds on the Government\u2019s commitment to giving people the power to take charge and make changes in their own communities.<\/p>\n<p>The additional funding will be allocated to a variety of projects, including community groups who are promoting change in disadvantaged communities through training, employment, healthy eating and volunteering opportunities.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Neil made the announcement ahead of this afternoon\u2019s Stage 1 Debate for the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Bill. He said:\u00a0 \u2018We know every community in Scotland has different needs, and that we all have our own ideas about how we can make our areas better.\u00a0 This Government recognises that by giving communities the power and confidence to shape their own futures, we can tackle poverty and address inequalities more effectively.\u00a0 Through the People and Communities Fund we will provide money direct to community groups to help them tackle local issues on their own terms.\u00a0 This new money will support the aims of the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Bill, which will give people a stronger voice in the decisions that matter to them and will help communities who wish to take over public land and buildings.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>Since PCF launched in 2012, 156 projects have received funding worth \u00a318.3 million those projects include the Broomhouse Health Strategy Group which was awarded almost \u00a330,000 to run cookery and exercise sessions which encourage local people to make healthy lifestyle choices.\u00a0 The sessions have helped increase self-esteem and confidence among local people, many of whom had never cooked a meal from scratch before, and it has supported their skills development with some developing the confidence to move into local volunteering roles. Lucy Aitchison, from the Broomhouse Health Strategy Group said: \u2018It\u2019s been great to develop our health and wellbeing services, and you can see them making a real difference to people\u2019s lives.\u00a0 To give people the skills to be able to look after themselves and their family more healthily is really significant. We\u2019re so pleased to have the support to be able to address these local needs.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>For more information about the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.scotland.gov.uk\/Topics\/People\/engage\" target=\"_blank\">Community Empowerment (Scotland) Bill<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Details on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.scotland.gov.uk\/Topics\/Built-Environment\/regeneration\/community\/pcf\" target=\"_blank\">The People and Communities Fund<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/?s=%27community+empowerment%27\" target=\"_blank\">IHBC newsblogs on the community empowerment bill\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/?s=regeneration\" target=\"_blank\">IHBC newsblogs on regeneration<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/?s=funding\" target=\"_blank\">IHBC newsblogs on funding<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Scottish Government (SG) has increased the People and Communities Fund by a further \u00a35.6 million funding, which will allow more groups in areas of socio-economic deprivation to access funding for training, employment and community needs, including helping people to &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/?p=9533\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9533","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sector-newsblog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9533","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9533"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9533\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9534,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9533\/revisions\/9534"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}