Social Investment Fund and Social Protection Fund

Archived Adult Education/Learning Aged 26 - 59 years Buildings and built environment Communities Community and neighbourhood development Community development Community safety and crime prevention good relations Healthcare services Housing and homelessness organisational development Poverty and deprivation Rural development social enterprise Social inclusion Social partnership Social welfare and poverty Strategic and project planning Un/Employed Urban development Voluntary and community infrastructure Antrim & Newtownabbey Ards & North Down Armagh City, Banbridge & Craigavon Belfast City Causeway Coast and Glens Derry City and Strabane Fermanagh and Omagh Lisburn and Castlereagh Mid and East Antrim Mid Ulster Newry, Mourne and Down Large (over £60,000)

Track grant Notes

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Overview

The Social Investment Fund is focused on supporting communities to:

increase employment opportunities by addressing things such as educational underachievement, lack of skills, access to jobs and making it appealing for businesses to start up in areas which have suffered deprivation
tackle issues such as mental and physical health, use of drugs and alcohol, becoming a young mother, young people’s involvement in antisocial behaviour and the ability of communities to work together which can all be associated with deprivation
increase services in the community by improving existing facilities, making the environment better and providing additional facilities where needed and possible
address dereliction in order to make areas more appealing for investment and for those living there

Operation of the fund

Steering Groups

The fund is being delivered in partnership with communities across nine social investment zones. Each zone has a steering group with up to 14 members from the business, political, statutory and voluntary and community sectors. The Steering Groups developed and prioritised projects to address priority needs in each zone.

Information on the Steering group membership can be found at the link below.

Social Investment Fund Steering Groups

How the investment zones were decided

Four zones identified outside Belfast are broadly the same as the areas where the health and social care trusts operate. Four zones are in the Greater Belfast area and are largely based on Northern Ireland Assembly constituencies. One zone is aligned with the Derry City Council boundary.

Eligibility for funding

The Steering Groups for each zone were asked to identify areas eligible to avail of SIF interventions related to the 4 objectives. It was agreed that the following measures would be used to decide which areas were eligible:

areas within the top 10 per cent of most deprived Super Output Areas on the Multiple Deprivation Measure 2010
areas within the top 20 per cent of most deprived Super Output Areas on the key indicators of income, employment, education and health
areas which could provide independently verified and robust evidence of objective need linked to the four strategic objectives of the Social Investment Fund (as detailed above)

Track grant Notes