Bedfordshire's PCC launches new Grant Fund to help offenders turn their lives around

Bedfordshire's Police and Crime Commissioner has launched a new Grant Fund for 2020-21 to support offenders to turn their lives around.

Kathryn Holloway has launched her Grant Fund for the next year and is inviting applications to help pay for projects to help offenders succeed in living a crime-free life, with support for drug and alcohol dependency and early intervention programmes to help children and young people avoid gangs and serious youth violence.

The PCC’s Grant Fund of approximately £170,000 is an annual opportunity to support innovative and collaborative working across Bedfordshire to help support victims and improve community safety.

This year, as Commissioner Holloway is voluntarily stepping down from her role at the next election, she is leaving £300,000 for her successor to run their own funding process when they are elected into office in May 2021.

She said: “Helping to stop the revolving door back to prison, focussing on the addictions that drive prolific crime like burglary, street robbery and vehicle theft to get the cash for the next fix or drink and building on the successful interventions that have driven down serious youth violence in this county by 9 per cent in the year to March 2020 are all my key priorities for the 2020-21 grant process. I have found myself in circumstances where the election of a new PCC was delayed for a year.

"As a result, I have to deliver business as usual and support key partners and charities to help victims of crime and improve community safety through my normal commissioning process, but I was determined not to restrict my successor to my programme of commissions for what would be one third of his or her term (as the delayed election means the next PCC will serve for three years not five like me).

"As a result, I am setting aside a sizeable amount for them to distribute after coming into office."

The 2021/22 Grant Fund will be open to applications for two months and will require applicants to focus on one of the following areas:

Area 1 - The fund available for offender management and support for drug and alcohol dependency programmes is £50,000 (with £25k for drug rehabilitation and diversion and £25k for alcohol programmes).

The bids in total need to service the whole of Bedfordshire. If a bid is for one of the dependencies bidders need to alter the amount bid for as the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner will need to provide funding for both sets of projects. These programmes will be directly linked to conditional cautions meaning that, as an alternative to being charged, individuals will have to commit to enter a drug or alcohol rehabilitation programme and adhere to it.

All applicants for this area of grants need to be existing members of the procurement process for the Drug and Alcohol services to the Local Authority area they are part of.

Area 2 - The Bedfordshire Violence and Exploitation Reduction Unit (VERU) is one in which police and partners from local authorities, youth offending, health and charities work together to support young people and their families across the county to divert them from gang membership and youth violence. The Commissioner’s new fund for early intervention projects is £120,000.

Individual bids need to be no more than £15,000 so that eight new programmes can be commissioned covering Bedfordshire as a whole.

All applicants are advised to contact the VERU who will provide a fact sheet to outline what the unit is currently doing and where bids would be most welcome. Would-be bidders for grants should email [email protected] for further details.

Applications must be submitted by 4pm on November 27, there will then be a shortlist process, followed by interviews. Projects should start in April 2021.

The Commissioning Fund is now open and details can be found on the PCC's website.

If bidders have questions, they can contact the OPCC on 01234 842064 or email [email protected].