Migration Impact Fund

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Migration Impact Fund English Language and Citizenship Project - how to apply

The Bristol Partnership is now seeking expressions of interest from organisations to deliver some engagement and support services for migrants, and also to support public services to manage the impact of migration on services, and support their local communities.  All organisations wishing to submit applications to this fund must register through the Bristol E-Procurement System (BEPS) website https://procurement.bristol.gov.uk/supplierselfservice/. 

 

You can download a copy of the guidance notes and application form here.  DO NOT APPLY using this - you must apply online through the BEPS system.

Deadline for return of a proposal for the above tender: 9.30am Monday 16 November.

Free Resources and Training

Groups wishing to submit a tender to be part of Bristol's Migrant Impact Fund service delivery may find the following resources useful when developing their bids:

The Joint Commissioning Team, Bristol City Council  and VOSCUR delivered free training to organisations which were considering submitting a bid under this funding.  The training provided useful, practical guidance and information to help you complete your proposals, particularly in relation to service outcomes, impacts  and benefits.  It was an opportunity for interested groups to ask any questions they had about the application form.

The training took place on Tuesday 3 November 2009 at the Black Development Agendy. 

 

Bristol's Application for Migration Impacts Funding successful

The Bristol Partnership and Bristol City Council Children and Young People's Services were successful in submitting bids to the Migration Impacts Fund to increase the level of support for migrants in Bristol.

Bristol Partnership - English Language and Citizenship Project
£327,982 will be available for an English Language and Citizenship Project - this will go on recruiting ‘community champions and migrant volunteers’ who will be trained to raise awareness of what services are available - in particular police, health, education, children’s services and fire safety - and how to use them.  This bid did not receive the full amount of funding requested in the application.

Children and Young People's Services - Support to Schools Project
£412,000 will be provided to support schools that are experiencing pressures through the increase of migrant pupils - this will be used to cover the cost of extra classroom assistants to support pupils with limited use of English. 

The Bristol Partnership put in a third bid for an Expertise Hub project but this was not successful.

For more information, please contact Jane Taylor, 9039750 or jane.taylor@bristol.gov.uk

You can download the bid submitted by Bristol below:

Migration Impacts Fund - Background Information

The Government has created the Migration Impacts Fund, which will be made available to public services to promote innovative ways of managing the transitional impact of migration on public services. The fund will be managed and allocated by Local Strategic Partnerships (in our case, the Bristol Partnership). Applications to this fund must be led by statutory sector organisations (such as the police, local authorities, and primary care trusts).

Examples of what the fund can be used for include:

  • Police services and hospitals could use the fund to reduce the cost burden of interpreting; this could include the recruitment of Police community Support Officers from migrant communities or providing a pool of interpreters across local services.
  • The fund could be used to provide extra support for teachers and children’s services in areas where migration has led to a high turnover of pupils in schools.
  • In addition the fund could help with projects to improve community safety, ensuring migrants are aware of the rules and combating myths.

(The above are examples – it is essential that local services shape the use of the fund in their local area)

Will the Government Offices and LSPs be considering the voluntary sector when looking at funding proposals?

“We encourage third sector bodies to get involved in this process. They play an important role in managing the impacts of migration and are well represented on LSPs. It is a local decision on whether third sector bodies receive funding directly from the Impacts fund, the intention of the fund is to relieve pressures on local services that are likely to receive most of this fund. Local services may subcontract third sector bodies and we will be encouraging multi-agency approaches.”

The regional assessment panel is expecting to see evidence of cross sector and partnership working. The criteria against which applications will be judged include:

“can demonstrate the support and co-operation of projects across agencies and sectors”

The funding guidance tells us that the regional assessment panel is keen to see packages of projects coming forward. In these cases applications should make clear who will deliver the actual service – particularly where this delivery will be undertaken by smaller or Third Sector organisations.

If you have an idea or suggestion for this fund and are already delivering a service for a local statutory agency then contact your link officer and make them aware of the fund and how you can work together to develop a proposal.

If your organisation has an idea or is able to provide a service that meets the criteria of this fund, but has no contact with a statutory agency, then please contact Wendy Stephenson or Matthew Symonds at Voscur and we will link you to the appropriate contact within the Bristol Partnership.

NOTE Take action now – the deadline for final submissions is 28th April!