Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Minister of State, Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, with reference to the Answer of 23 October 2019 to Question 662 on Third Sector, whether the first round of Local Access programme funding has been released; and what five places will receive that funding.

Big Society Capital and The Access Foundation announced the six places will receive funding: Bradford; Bristol; Gainsborough; Greater Manchester (Bolton, Oldham, Stockport and Wigan); Hartlepool, Redcar & Cleveland; and Southwark in London. The six partnerships will now begin a co-design process with Access and Big Society Capital to refine the detail of their enterprise development and investment plans with an expectation that the first place based programmes will launch in the second part of 2020. A small amount of grant funding will be released to assist with the co-design phase.