§ Dr. GibsonTo ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills when he will announce the allocation of funds to new contact centres following the publication of "Making Contact Work". [163759]
1183W
§ Margaret HodgeI announced on 19 March that £3.5 million was being made available to March 2006, from a DfES/Sure Start Joint Investment Fund, for child contact services. Just under £2.3 million of this money will fund 14 new supervised child contact centres. £130,000 is being made available to Coram Family to provide high quality training to the new centres; £200,000 will provide continued funding for the NCH Contact Matters Pilot Project in Durham; £387,000 will fund the National Association of Child Contact Centres (NACCC) Change Programme whereby it moves its membership from affiliated to accredited status; and £75,000 is being set aside for research into child contact services. We are also making £430,000 available for a 'Sustainability Fund' to support, over the next two years, existing NACCC-member child contact centres in England. The funding will be administered by NACCC and details about how to apply will be announced in July at NACCC's Annual Conference.