The most deprived communities in England can now apply for further funding to provide !world class places for young people” with the DCSF announcing a further £31.6m of funding through the myplace programme.
Following the first round of myplace projects, the Big Lottery Fund will deliver on behalf of DCSF, a further £31.6m of grants ranging between £1m and £5m each.
£240m of grants were awarded to 62 round 1 projects which have been developed with the help, creativity and vision of young people. This further round of investment is targeted at communities in need of help to deliver their existing plans to change facilities available in their areas for the better, to help young people to thrive and succeed.
Background notes
1. The Big Fund (BIG), on behalf of DSCF, is offering grants of between £1m and 5m.
2. Details of the myplace Round 2 eligibility and assessment criteria, a list of eligible areas and the application process, are available on the BIG website at http://www.biglotte
3. Given the limited funding available in Round 2, BIG have reviewed the myplace Round 1application process, eligibility and assessment criteria to reduce the time and resources spent by organisations and young people developing applications that are unlikely to be successful. As a result there are a number of significant changes from Round 1.
4. Round 2 will focus on projects that have already invested significant energy in well-developed plans for a world-class youth facility driven by the active participation of young people and their views and needs.
5. In contrast to Round 1, and in the light of the limited funding available, eligibility for Round 2 is restricted to projects located in the one third most deprived areas of England. Of those areas that have already had a previous myplace award, only those with large youth populations will be eligible to put forward additional projects.
6. Projects which meet the eligibility criteria, including those that have previously made unsuccessful applications to myplace, have a short window of opportunity to express an initial interest in the funding round.
7. BIG will assess and rank these expressions of interest on their fit with the aim of myplace and the extent to which they have already worked closely with young people and partners to develop and plan their project. BIG will also take into account the relative deprivation of the projects’ locality, the extent to which projects have secured investment from other sources, and the proximity to previously funded myplace projects.
8. In July BIG will invite a short list of the highest quality projects to submit a full application by the end of September. BIG will only short list projects that have demonstrated that young people have already actively participated in shaping the project, and that local partners are already committed to supporting it.
9. BIG do not expect to fund more than 10 projects through Round 2, and therefore do not expect to invite more than 40 organisations to submit a full application. BIG expect to announce projects that have been successful in Round 2 by the end of 2009.
The Big Fund is the non-Lottery funding operation of the Big Lottery Fund.
• The Big Lottery Fund (BIG) distributes lottery funding to health, education, environment and charitable causes across the UK. It also uses its expertise in grant-giving to distribute non-lottery funding. BIG has been appointed to distribute around £270 million of Government funding from DCSF to develop world-class youth facilities in England through the myplace progamme.
Tony Attwood