Holiday Activities and Food Research Fund

(asked on 11th July 2019) - View Source

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what the (a) titles, (b) amount awarded and (c) reasons for decisions were for the (i) unsuccessful and (ii) successful bids for grant funding from the Holiday Activities and Food Programme for the summer holidays in (A) 2018 and (B) 2019.


Answered by
Nadhim Zahawi Portrait
Nadhim Zahawi
This question was answered on 16th July 2019

In 2018, we announced a programme of work to explore ways of supporting disadvantaged families during school holidays.

We received 94 applications for funding from organisations across the country for a share of £2 million. Following a 2-stage competitive bid assessment process, we awarded funding to the 7 highest scoring organisations: Feeding Britain, Family Action, Street Games UK, On Side Youth Zones, Children North East, Birmingham Holiday Kitchen and TLG. The 87 unsuccessful organisations were notified and offered feedback on their application.

Building on the 2018 programme we quadrupled funding and strengthened the programme to encourage co-ordination in local communities so that even more disadvantaged children can benefit.

Applications were invited from organisations to act as a coordinator in a specific local authority area. We received 92 applications and selected 11 for funding, including at least one in each of the 9 English regions. As with 2018, unsuccessful bidders were all notified and feedback was offered.

The purpose of this programme is to allow us to gather more evidence about the scale of the issue, the most effective ways of tackling it, and the costs and burdens associated with doing so. As a result, we will be able to make an evidence-based decision about whether and how we should intervene in the longer term.

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