As you may be aware, the Welsh Government’s (WG) Communities First Programme will end on 31st March 2018.
Following the decision to end Communities First (CF), two new grants were announced by WG, to be managed by City of Cardiff Council (CCC) – The Employability Support Grant (CFW plus) and a Legacy Fund, aimed at retaining the best elements of CF.
Following consultation and discussions with Cardiff Council we have been informed that CCC will be retaining the CFW plus grant to deliver services in-house and a decision regarding the use of legacy funding, a greatly reduced level of funding than that received for CF, has been delayed until at least spring.
C3SC, which hosts the ECLP CF programme, is not yet clear if we will receive any further funding from CCC after 31 March 2018, but we are clear that any funding received will be at a much reduced level and therefore will not sustain the current number of ECLP staff and projects. It is with regret that I am writing to confirm that most, if not all, existing ECLP Communities First services will end in the coming months.
The Communities for Work (CFW) project, currently delivered by us in ECLP, will continue until 2020. However, the project and the staff employed to deliver it will transfer to Cardiff Council in February.
All services delivered by CF staff – Learning, Health, Community Involvement and Prosperity support – are working towards an end date of 16th February. We are holding a drop-in session on the 9th February 2018 from 10 – 2 at Rumney Hub, Llanstephan Road, CF3 3JA if you wish to discuss this with us further. Courses that are already booked in will run until March as planned. The CFW service appointments will continue until the end of February and existing participants will transfer into the new structure. CCC will be able to provide further details going forward.
For the past three years through consistent feedback and positive evaluations, we know the great impact our services have had for the over 12,000 participants that have used them, and we share the disappointment that they are not continuing.
As an organisation we remain committed to providing good, quality services and support to some of the most vulnerable people in our communities and as such we will endeavour to continue to develop our work and to, wherever practical, deliver similar projects and support in the future.
We would like to take this opportunity to thank all our partners for your support and your contributions towards the delivery of the CF project and the amazing outcomes for participants. An infographic is attached to celebrate some of the key outcomes we achieved in the last three years. We hope that many of these relationships will continue to be developed and support our future work. Please contact Cardiff Third Sector Council – telephone 029 2048 5722 or email enquiries@c3sc.org.uk – if you have any questions or if we can help in any way.
Kind Regards,
Sheila Hendrickson-Brown, Wendy Marinos & the ECLP CF/C3SC Team
You can find an Infographic that outlines the accomplishments of ECLP CF Team here
