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Originally Posted by Lampman
As promised I have spent sometime perusing Gayle's info.The upshot is I don't know if all the funds have been allocated'fairly'(not enough brains/knowledge on my part).
One item I was reminded of though from an earlier posting of mine was that the NRF funding that provided after school care for youngsters has ended.
Apparently because we have risen out of the 50 most deprived areas!
Now as previously stated,this funding enabled places such as the New Era Centre to provide staff and facillities for the care of young people who having finished school for the day,would probably be 'home alone' until their parents returned from work or other less gainful pastimes.
I will add that this place has provided the service to all kids,irrespective of ethnic background.
Now the dedicated people in Youth Services tried and failed to replace the funding,result half a dozen staff redundant and all the kids back on the streets to find other amusement.
Now most of these kids will probably fair O.K.,some will not!
My meandering point is should Mr.Britcliffe not ensure that funds were available for this former Community flagship? How many of these kids will at some stage fall in with the wrong influence?
I have no answers myself as I do not know the ins and outs of funding,perhaps Gayle you can use your journalistic powers and find out?
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From what I understand about funding you can sort of break it down into two types
a) one off events/projects that have a short term life span - these are usually managed by freelance workers or are incorporated into someone's job role within a larger remit - i.e. smaller scale
b) projects that should be converted into a sustainable resource/project - a large scale, long term project that employs dedicated staff
From what you have said above, the project should fall into (b) and yes should be sustainable. There are of course, a few ways of doing that - obtaining funding from a different source, converting some aspect of the project into a profit making resource or asking for the local council to feed into it from their budget.
All of these methods have their flaws and too often I see projects that should be sustainable fail because they have not been prepared for the point when funding will be withdrawn. Although, withdrawn is the wrong word as it is always known from the start of the project how long the funding will be guaranteed for. Too often organisations rely on the funding that they're getting and don't look for alternatives until it is too late. I'm not saying that happened here, that is just one possible reason why it happened in the way it did.
As for whether Britcliffe should fund it - in my opinion, not necessarily - the council has a limited budget and they can not always be the fall back position for groups that have run out of funding. They just don't have that kind of money.