§ Dr. Lynne JonesTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will reinstate the previous level of the safer cities budget for Birmingham to help fund projects for youth and community resources in areas with high juvenile crime rates.
§ Mr. JackNo. As part of our crime prevention strategy, the grants budget of the Birmingham safer cities project, together with those of the other 15 longer established projects, has been set at £100,000 in 1993–94 enabling funds to be released for work to be started on a new phase of safer cities projects elsewhere.
Having seen the value demonstrated by Safer Cities, we hope that local communities and interests will be willing to take over the projects and continue their work after Home Office funding for the 16 projects ends in March 1994. Some additional funding from a central budget of £500,000 will be available to Birmingham and the other 15 projects to assist work aimed at leaving in place satisfactory continuing arrangements for the maintenance and development of local multi-agency crime prevention work.
Through the safer cities project, the Home Office has supported a wide range of work in Birmingham focusing on juveniles including schemes providing football coaching and other sporting activities, tackling bullying, promoting junior crime prevention panels and tackling graffiti. These illustrate what can be done often with modest funding. In addition, the Home Office provides funding for three projects in Birmingham organised by the probation service in partnership with the voluntary sector to provide programmes of supervision for young offenders.