HL Deb 20 December 1990 vol 524 cc61-2WA
Lord Elton

asked Her Majesty's Government:

When they propose to publish details of the new fund to help finance voluntary organisations in the furtherance of policies set out in This Common Inheritance (Cm. 1200).

Baroness Blatch

We are very pleased to announce that the Department of the Environment has today issued invitations to voluntary groups to apply for project funding under the new Environmental Grant Fund. The grant is available exclusively for projects which will help to further the policies set out in the White PaperThis Common Inheritance, published in September 1990.

We are eager to use the new fund to support practical projects at the local level. We will particularly favour projects which show innovations or which involve new groups in environmental work. Funding will normally be in the form of a 50 per cent. contribution to the overall project cost, with an unlimited proportion of this being available to meet capital costs. Projects can be funded for up to three years and will be closely monitored to assess their effectiveness.

In order to bring the scheme quickly into operation, we have decided for this first year only to restrict applications to national and regional organisations. We will be discussing with the voluntary sector how the scheme might be extended for future years to target local groups directly.

Six hundred and fifty thousand pounds are available in this first year; £1.5 million will be available in 1993–94 when the fund is fully operational.