National Lottery Charities Board North East

A Summary of the North East Strategic Plan

Introduction

The National Lottery Charities Board awards grants to help those at greatest disadvantage and to improve the quality of life in the community. Our North East strategic development plan identifies needs and priorities across the region and will help us achieve this aim. It will also help us to review and develop our work in consultation with other organisations in the region. It will strengthen our partnerships with those organisations and will serve as a framework for measuring our progress over the next three years.

The plan was produced following a consultation exercise in which a range of voluntary and statutory organisations were asked to comment on a draft of the plan. Views were also received through meetings with the public and with local authorities. These views have all been taken into account in producing our development plan for the region.

What we have achieved so far

Between October 1995 and March 1999, we made 1,487 grants in the North East totalling �63.6 million, supporting a wide range of projects in all parts of the region. These have ranged from �500 for waterproof jackets for a brownie pack in Cramlington, to �682,000 for a community development project in St Chad�s, Gateshead. We have funded many buildings, from Muggleswick Village Hall in rural County Durham, to the refurbishment of a large voluntary sector building in the centre of Newcastle. Other work supported includes community transport schemes, playgroups, training and education, disabled access improvements and many others. A full list of grants is available from the regional office.

Meeting needs in the North East

We looked at needs in the region from both a statistical and qualitative viewpoint and across a range of subject areas. While the root cause of disadvantage in the North East is long-term unemployment and poverty, its effects are more complex including poor health, poor environment, crime, and low educational attainment.

While the most apparent economic deprivation is concentrated in the urban areas of Tyneside, Wearside, Teesside and County Durham, there is also extensive poverty in rural parts of the region. Two groups are particularly disadvantaged in the North East compared to the rest of the country: the proportion of people with disabilities is markedly higher; and minority ethnic communities are particularly vulnerable.

The regional voluntary sector is strong on local responsiveness when identifying specific needs. Many organisations in the region tend to be relatively small and informal due to the history of social welfare provision through statutory organisations, trades unions and large employers. Much remains to be done to support the sector, particularly in the former coalfield areas.

We have identified nine priorities to address in future development work:

• tackling the social effects of long-term unemployment
• priority areas � geographical areas of need that have a low take-up of grants
• projects that foster greater community participation in decision making
• support for small voluntary groups
• community buildings
• minority ethnic communities
• people with disabilities
• supporting and developing the voluntary sector infrastructure
• achieving geographic equity through a fair spread of grants across the region.

Delivering our development priorities

To help us deliver and monitor our work in the North East we have set out the following action points.

• Priority areas: We will select two priority geographic areas for 1999-2000, where we will focus our development work and work with other agencies to improve the number and quality of applications. We expect this to be the start of a long term plan of targeted development work.
• Targeting: We will consider using new powers granted by legislation to create a voluntary sector regional body.
• Feedback: We will review and improve how we provide feedback to applicants following an independent evaluation of the system piloted in the North East.
• Community buildings: We will discuss the issues surrounding funds for community buildings with local agencies and local authorities, with a view to issuing regional guidance for applicants.
• Partnership: We will maintain our high level of contact with local authorities, local trusts and voluntary sector helper organisations and will set up targeted meetings in certain areas.
• Measuring and monitoring: We will monitor applications and grants made against our development priorities and the success rate of applications for the development of projects already funded.
• Eligibility: We will examine the implications of the Charity Commission�s review of charitable status and we will enable local development agencies to advise on eligibility.
• Transparency: We will publish information on grants made by geographic location, success rates and amounts awarded per head of population.
• Promotion: We will carr y out promotional work across the region, targeting areas and communities in the light of application success rates and regional priorities.

We will review our grant-making performance against our development plan and will continue to develop our work for the North East in consultation with other organisations.

For further information about our North East strategic development plan, contact:

National Lottery Charities Board
North East Regional Office
6th Floor, Baron House
4 Neville Street
Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 5NL
Telephone: 0191 255 1100
Minicom: 0191 233 2099