Changes to the Lambeth Community Fund

In November 2006, the government published a white paper called Strong and Prosperous Communities. It set out proposals that will impact on our future work with Lambeth’s communities.

Since then the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill has been published, and this demonstrates the desire of government to see changes in the way local authorities and other public sector providers of services plan and deliver locally.

Its aim is to reduce the amount of top-down control from central government. The council sees this as an opportunity to reshape and improve services together with the individuals and communities who use them alongside our partners.

We have therefore started to engage extensively across the borough to determine options for how the council could better support communities in the future. Through the Communities First initiative the council wants to give local people a greater say in how their communities are run.

As part of this change, the council will review the operation of the Lambeth Community Fund It will be replaced with a new targeted programme for 2008/09 designed to better support community initiatives that will deliver genuine benefit for our diverse communities and neighbourhood areas.