Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what steps he has taken to protect BAME charities from closure during the covid-19 outbreak.
My department is committed to ongoing, regular and in depth engagement with the charity and social enterprise sectors during the COVID-19 pandemic. DCMS will continue to work closely to assess how we can support BAME charities and social enterprises in doing their important work. The Minister for Civil Society holds a fortnightly roundtable to hear directly from BAME civil society organisations to highlight concerns and responses to covid-19.
The Government's £750m targeted funding package and a further £150 million from dormant bank accounts will help charities, social enterprises and vulnerable individuals. We are proactively engaging across government and directly with the sector to maintain a complete picture of the impact and to better understand unmet needs at a national and local level that are not already addressed by existing plans.
My department and the National Lottery Community Fund (NLCF - our distribution partners for the Coronavirus Community Support Fund) have been - and continue to - engage extensively with BAME organisations during the development of the response and are working with a number of organisations to improve the reach of the Coronavirus Community Support Fund. A diverse advisory panel has been set up to support the distribution process for the fund.