§ Mr. Ivan LawrenceTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when he plans to make an announcement about the selection of areas for the safer cities phase 2 programme.
§ Mr. Charles WardleI announced on 29 December that decisions have been made on the first wave of projects to be set up under phase 2 of the safer cities programme and on the organisations which will manage them on our behalf. The competitive nature of the bids received together with the commitment of additional resources from key local agencies means that projects can be set up in all 10 of the shortlisted areas.
After careful evaluation of the tenders two organisations have been chosen to run the projects: Crime Concern and the National Association for the Care and Rehabilitation of Offenders—NACRO. Both organisations have significant experience in crime prevention, project management and working with voluntary agencies.
Crime Concern will manage projects in Blackburn, Burnley, Greenwich, Lambeth, Manchester, Merthyr Tydfil and Plymouth and NACRO in Leeds, Newcastle and Sheffield. Projects will start to come on stream early in the new year.
Further waves of phase 2 projects are planned, but as safer cities funding will be included in the single regeneration budget from 1 April 1994 decisions about future projects will be taken in conjunction with the Department of the Environment.