Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, whether he has plans to extend the Integrated Communities Innovation Fund beyond 2020.
We know that the causes of poor integration are complex and we have to admit that it will take generational change to truly deliver the well-integrated communities that we want to see. But first we need to know what works.
The Integrated Communities Innovation Fund (2019/20) supported 16 projects to test innovative approaches to integration and generate important learning on how to bridge divides and bring communities together.
The purpose of the Innovation Fund was to trial new approaches and address this evidence gap. In order to understand which interventions have been effective, we now need to review the findings. A national evaluator will compile this evidence, which will be shared widely and used to inform future policy.