South Lanarkshire Council set aside £5million to tackle poverty

SOUTH Lanarkshire Council will spend nearly £5million tackling poverty in the next financial year. However, the final figure will be down by £665,000 from last year due to budget cuts.

The authority will also benefit from over £3million from outside agents to try to solve the problem.

Councillors at last week’s Executive Committee gave the go-ahead for an allocation of £4.98million, split between various resources as well as other partner agencies, as part of their Tackling Poverty Programme.

They also agreed on how to spend £2.71million from the European Social Fund and were told that officers expected to receive a grant of £732,000 to boost their Routes to Work South project.

Councillors were told that the 2011/12 programme would place the greatest emphasis on boosting employment, early intervention and early years.

Issues such as financial inclusion, vulnerable families and health improvement will be categorised as being of “medium priority.”

A report to the committee said this would allow the council to minimise reductions on high priority programmes, with some projects being scrapped all together.

By far the biggest allocation of the pot will go to Enterprise Resources. They will receive around £2.7million for programmes such as More Choices More Chances, Key Client Group Developments and Sectoral and Infrastructure Developments.

Education (£565,443), Housing and Technical (£284,274), Social Work (£134,582) and Community Resources (£106,660) will all be involved in programmes.

The voluntary sector will receive around £993,500 for supporting youth diversion, early health intervention and financial inclusion programmes while NHS Lanarkshire get £202,000 for continued support for the First Steps Programme.

The European Social Fund money will go towards 12 different projects across Enterprise, Education and corporate Resources, as well as Voluntary Sector South Lanarkshire, the NHS and Momentum. Around £64,000 will be set aside for programme management.