Home Office Community Fund Grant

LOCAL LEAGUES LTD RECEIVES FUNDING IN FIGHT AGAINST VIOLENT CRIME

A Birmingham-based organisation working with young people to prevent them becoming involved in gun, gang and knife crime has been awarded funding to support their vital work.

Local Leagues Ltd received £28,400 as one of more than 150 organisations nationwide that were awarded over £2.3 million to tackle knife crime and support victims.

Local Leagues will employ outreach, mentoring, and other individual support to combat the threat of street gang related violence and fear of violent crime in the Sparkbrook, Bordesley Green, Small Heath and Sparkhill areas of East Birmingham. 

Local Leagues will work with young people who are at risk of becoming involved in gang culture and, potentially, in guns and knives related crime.  The funding from the Community Fund and the Youth Sector Development Fund will enable Local Leagues to engage with these disaffected young people to prevent them from becoming involved in gun, gang and knife crime.
   
Announcing the funding the Home Secretary Alan Johnson said:

"The organisations receiving funding work tirelessly with communities at the very frontline of the fight against knife crime and demonstrate how at every level we are tackling serious youth violence.

"I am committed to making our streets safer by tackling the minority of young people who commit serious violence through enforcement, tougher sentencing, and also stronger prevention, sending out a very clear message that it will not be tolerated."

The funding is part of the government’s one-year extension of its Tackling Knives Action Programme (TKAP) announced in March. TKAP now works intensively in 15 areas affected by knife crime to reduce the number of knives on the streets, as well as with the British Transport Police.
  
 NOTES TO EDITORS

1. More than 150 organisations across the country, who all work in the Tackling Knives Action Programme (TKAP) areas, will receive funding from the homicide section of the Victims’ Fund, the Youth Sector Development Fund or the Community Fund. Community Fund grants will be awarded following successful completion of the due diligence process;
   
   
2. For details of the successful bidders visit www.crimereduction.homeoffice.gov.uk/funding/funding013.htm;
   
   
3. The Community Fund was launched in October 2008 to provide £4.5 million of funding over three years to 150 organisations working to divert young people from gun, gang and knife crime in the 13 Phase 1 TKAP areas;
   
   
4. The Youth Sector Development Fund is run through DCSF and will provide £100 million over three years (2008-2011). The Home Office has contributed a one-off £500k to the YSDF which will be allocated to four organisations working specifically with young people most at risk of becoming involved in gang and knife crime;
   
   
5. The Victims’ Fund was established in 2004/05. It contributes to a wider programme of work to provide victims and witnesses with specialists support to meet their individual needs;
   
6. TKAP launched in June 2008 with ten police forces – Metropolitan, Essex, Lancashire, West Yorkshire, Merseyside, West Midlands, Greater Manchester, Nottinghamshire, South Wales and Thames Valley. In November 2008 four more were added as second tier forces - Bedfordshire, Northumbria, South Yorkshire and British Transport Police. In March 2009 it was further extended to include Kent and Hampshire;
   
   
7. TKAP is sending out a clear message that if an individual carries a knife, they are more likely to get caught, prosecuted and receive a tough punishment.  It has also accelerated educational programmes and diversionary activity to stop young people becoming involved in knife crime in the first place, and reassured the public that we are doing all that we can to keep knives off our streets, with high visibility enforcement activity to back this message up;
   
   
8. For more information call Local Leagues Ltd on 0121 446 4111.

For Press Releases, contact:

Sam Lockyer (Sports Development Supervisor)
Tel: 0121 446 4111 ext 26
email: s.lockyer@localleagues.com