£ 4m fund bid for groups as protest is held
GLASGOW City Council has announced a £ 4million “transition fund” after of f ic ials recommended to knock back more than 100 charities, groups and third- sector organisations from lifeline funding.
We exclusively told last week how council chiefs had proposed to reject 134 city charity, groups, programmes and organisations from £ 77m worth of lifeline funding from the Glasgow Communities Fund.
The authority had received an influx of applications for the community grants totalling to £ 135m. There was however only £ 58m worth of grants made available.
Officials had adopted a point- scoring assessment to allow them to make decisions about the appointments of the awards. This included organisation/ governance, project development, project delivery, project outcomes and impact of the fund, project finance and sustainability.
News of the “transition fund” came as a demonstration took place outside the City Chambers yesterday in a bid to save five of the city’s Citizens Advice Bureaux ( CAB) and two law centres.
After mounting concerns over the potential closures of five city Citizens Advice Bureaux, the Castlemilk Law Centre and the Drumchapel Money Advice Centre, the city convener worked with officers and the sector to identify alternative funding.
Proposals to establish a £ 4m transitional fund will now be put forward outside of the Glasgow Communities Fund.
Councillor Jennifer Layden said: “I am pleased that we have been able to identify £ 4m transitional funding for the advice sector, violence against women organisations, and communities of interest and equalities groups supporting many of those most severely impacted by the pandemic.
“We have also identified additional funding for arts organisations.”
“Officers are now exploring how best to distribute this funding and recommendations will be presented to Cllrs in the coming weeks.”
Mike Dailly, solicitor and advocate for the Govan Law Centre, welcomed the new fund, however described the bid to reject the 134 groups from the lifeline cash as “sheer lunacy”.
He said: “We welcome this funding and we appreciate it but we haven’t seen the details. We don’t know at this stage what it means and whether it is going to protect the advice and law centres in Glasgow we don’t know.
“There is no doubt in my mind that Glasgow has the best progressive and best advice sector in the whole of the UK. Things we have done in Glasgow have benefited people across Scotland and the UK whether that be bank charges campaigns, bedroom tax and so on.
“We’ve done all these things as a community and the idea that you will pick on any one of us is not acceptable.”