LCD Support Funding 2003/4
During the next financial year (2003/2004) the Lord Chancellor's Department will spend £5 million on marriage and relationship support, the same as the funding for the financial year 2002/2003.
Rosie Winterton, announcing the grant awards for 2003-04, said,"In providing support to couples, from pre-marriage advice to intensive help for couples in crisis, Government aims to ensure that everyone has the best opportunity to establish positive and lasting relationships."
"This is especially important for anyone thinking about becoming a
parent. Every child should have the opportunity to grow up in a safe,
stable and loving family environment. A strong, thriving relationship
between two parents is one of the best possible ways of achieving
this.
"The services available must encompass cultures and traditions that
people feel they can identify with so that all couples in society can
access them."
This is the second year in which new grants have been made with the
specific objective of developing services to help couples who are,
for many reasons, unable or reluctant to use more traditional support
mechanisms.
At the same time, MARS grants will continue to maintain support for
established marriage and relationship support services, such as
Relate, Marriage Care, and Parentline Plus. The Lord Chancellor's
Department has sought to encourage established service providers and
newer organisations to share expertise and learn from each other.
For 2003-04, the Department received 105 bids from 70 different
organisations. In total, this year the Lord Chancellor's Department
has awarded 44 separate grants, for both core funding and research
and development work, to 35 organisations.
The funding has been allocated as set out in the tables below:
Core Funding
| Funding Allocated (£'s)
|
Parentline Plus | 62,000
|
Relate | 2,104,000
|
Marriage Care | 300,000
|
Family Welfare Association | 30,000
|
One Plus One | 242,000
|
London Marriage Guidance Council | 103,000
|
Tavistock Marital Studies Institute | 464,000
|
Jewish Marriage Council | 44,000
|
Asian Family Counselling Service | 50,000
|
2as 1 | 150,000
|
The Lesbian and Gay Foundation (with Relate) | 58,000
|
Muslim Welfare House | 20,000
|
The Salvation Army | 40,000
|
Aquila Care Trust | 60,000
|
Project for Advocacy, Counselling and Education | 25,000
|
Basic For Life | 25,000
|
The Cogwheel Trust | 5,000
|
Prisoners and Families | 16,000
|
Alpha International | 70,000
|
Reform Synagogues of Great Britain | 6,000
|
Total | 3,904,000 |
Research & Development Funding | Project Title | Amount allocated (£'s)
|
Totnes Family Partnership | Project funding | 50,000
|
Somerset Family Partnership | Project funding | 50,000
|
Family Matters York | Project funding | 30,000
|
Poole Community Family Trust | Project funding | 50,000
|
University of Exeter, School of Psychology | Money management and marital commitment in new couples: An evaluation of the efficacy of the FOCCUS Inventory | 45,000
|
Relate | Relateline telephone counselling service | 60,000
|
Relate | Research into the effectiveness of Relate services | 57,000
|
Care For the Family | Asian Family Matters | 36,000
|
London Marriage Guidance Council | Community Development | 65,000
|
The Minster Centre | Aracas Project (domestic violence) | 69,000
|
Tavistock Marital Studies Institute | TBA | 45,000
|
Sussex Family Mediation Service | TBA | 25,000
|
The Church of England | TBA | 24,000
|
Marriage Care | TBA | 70,000
|
The Richmond Centre | TBA | 39,000
|
One Plus One | TBA | 28,000
|
2as 1 | TBA | 50,000
|
2as 1 | TBA | 60,000
|
Brighton Oasis Project | Working with relationships damaged by drug abuse. | 43,000
|
Family Welfare Association | MARS outreach work for culturally excluded communities. | 70,000
|
Marriage Care | TBA | 70,000
|
Students Exploring Marriage | TBA | 14,000
|
Contact a Family | Project related to disabled children. | 16,000
|
Leeds Animation Workshop | Animated video on how couples can cope with the effects of enforced separation. | 65,000
|
Manic Depression Fellowship | Researching the difficulties encountered by couples where one or both have been diagnosed with manic depression. | 35,000
|
Total | | 1,096,000 |
Our Analysis
We have done an analysis both of the types of organisation, and the use of the funds as illustrated below. Principle observations we can offer are:-
- Counselling remains the major recipient with 61% (cf 60% last year) of all funding, whilst services to support couples and to prepare them get only 15%(cf 14% last year). The balance of 24% goes to enabling work such as research and access services, with research losing out slightly this year.
- The traditional recipients of funding (principally Relate, Marriage Care and the research organisations) have 74% of the funding, but the LCD has shifted it's funding so that 22% rather than last years 17% of funding goes to their so-called "Research and Development" projects (described by the LCD as projects forming a distinct piece of work) rather than "core funding".
- Community Family Trusts have born the brunt of this change, seeing all funding moved from core funding to the project category. Their funding has also been cut to 60% of last year with two trusts losing their funding altogether. However the good news is that the three most established CFT's have had their funding continued and we understand that there is a commitment that this will be continuing for the next three years. Strategically this is really important as it will give time for these key projects to really prove their impact
- True funding for Research had been reduced by 7% from it's allocation last year.
- An increase in spending on marriage preparation comes particularly in the form of a grant to Alpha International for publishing their marriage preparation course.
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