Tory bastards start the cull of our services.
This is only the beginning of a decimation of our communities and public services.

The future jobs fund which helps medium to long term 18-24 year old benefit claimants to get into work and the migration impact fund that helps areas with high levels of immigration through providing support to families new to the country. Typical Tory attacks on some of the most vulnerable sectors of our communities, immigrants and the young unemployed. You can be sure that this is nothing to what is going to happen when they start on the benefits system, and making full on cuts.

We need to fight back against these cuts and organise, there is a demonstration planned outside the Tory party conference on the 3rd of October and I will be there. Transport details will be here soon

http://sites.google.com/site/righttoworkconference/home...ation

Also there is the http://coalitionofresistance.wordpress.com/ which is having a conference at Camden Centre in London on 27 November 2010.

For more information on these cuts read the following statement from Wendy Smith Chief Executive of Voscur regarding these cuts.

"Voluntary and Community Sector - impact so far This paper is a response to the Bristol Partnership’s request for information about the impact of funding cuts for voluntary and community sector organisations.

Voscur is currently carrying out a survey amongst members on the impact of funding cuts. Until we have the results of the survey, set out below is information on:

1. examples of cuts with immediate effect
2. further anticipated cuts

1. Examples of cuts with immediate effect Since the Recession Resilience Action Plan (included in BP papers circulated
12 July) was published, we have received notification that the Future Jobs Fund and the Migration Impact Fund will be cut. Below is a summary of the anticipated impact of cutting these funds.
Future Jobs Fund (FJF) - Mike Wheeler, Future Jobs Fund manager reports:
The FJF West of England (WoE) Project will come to an end 31st October 2010.
To date 305 people have been employed under the WoE FJF scheme, the majority in Bristol, followed by South Glos, B&NES and North Somerset.

There are 187 vacancies to fill by the end of October. The West of England Project intended to submit a further bid to the fund to run from October 10 to March 11, to create another 500 jobs. This will no longer be possible.
This funding has created 300 jobs in voluntary, community and social enterprise (vcse) organisations in the area. These jobs are linked to training opportunities, have helped vcse organisations boost their own capacity, and brought benefit to local communities.

The closure of FJF will have a big impact on medium to long term 18-24 year old benefit claimants (mainly JSA). FJF opportunities were ring fenced for this particular client group, giving them a real chance of entering employment, along with all the benefits this brings. It is often easier to find a job when you have recent work history and an up to date reference.

Migration Impact Fund (MIF) - Suad Abdullahi Migration Impact Fund Project Manager reports:

Bristol Partnership secured funding from the Migration Impact Fund in 2009. Originally this funding stream was available for two years. This funding stream is to support local authorities and other public sector partners to manage the pressures experienced by public services as a result of migration to the city.

Particularly schools have seen an increase in the intake of pupils from migrant and newly arrived backgrounds.
Original projection for
MIF

English Language & Citizenship Project and Support to Schools Project

Year 2 budget £375,965 £388,000

New year 2 budget after cuts £187,983 £194,000

July 2010 Government Ministers announced that the Migration Impact Fund Year 2 should be suspended after the first 6 months.

This will cut the Year 2 funding stream by 50% (see above). This funding cut will have significant impact on the commissioned services to local Voluntary and Community Sector organisations, particularly in the English Language and Citizenship Project where a number of organisations have been delivering work for migrant citizens in Bristol. These services have been raising awareness of migrants, educating, training and enhancing migrants’
employability and opportunities. They have also been developing active citizenship within the migrant communities in Bristol, raising the levels of self confidence and sense of belonging to the city.

Impact of cutting this fund

• Contractual obligations have been entered into on the basis of letters from Government office for a two year period. Costs have been incurred and, some of those costs (mainly through employment and scheduled work with,
for example, children, teachers and families) will continue to accrue. • The programme is about taking steps that will leave a lasting legacy to help manage the pressure on public services arising from inward migration
– cancelling it now will add to the burdens on service provision.
• Increased future costs associated with translation and interpretation to EU Migrants
• Loss of funding for the many bilingual learning support assistants SA’S appointed in areas like Bristol that have seen an increase in pupil intake of newly arrived refugee and migrant communities, loss of Parent Support Advisors who provide access to advice and guidance and parenting skills courses for parents of newly arrived children, loss of a CPD programme for schools staff in line with Institute for Community Cohesion recommendations to share experience of dealing with diversity and new migrants across schools.
• Loss of assistance provided to schools which experience a significant intake of new pupils unfamiliar with English or the English school system, will have a major impact on community relations inside schools.

2 • Loss of MIF English Language and Citizenship project will create a significant gap in provision of ESOL & Citizenship courses, access to Information Advice and Guidance services for migrant communities, employability skills of newly arrived and/or migrant communities which are vital to a living a successful life fully integrated into UK society

Impacts on service users

1. Newly arrived children will not receive targeted classroom support through the New Arrivals Excellence Programme and assistance which they need in order to narrow the gap to achieve at the same level as their
counterparts.

2. 19+ adults from migrant communities will have little or no support in learning about life in the UK, how to access public services, how to live as a citizen of the UK, learn about the norms and values of society in the UK.

3. Access to employment will become more difficult as there will be no targeted interventions aimed at migrant communities to improve employability skills. This will lead to a higher dependency on public funds and cause an acute situation for some migrant communities who cannot access public funds such as Romanian and Bulgarian nationals.

4. The loss of delivery of IAG services to migrants and refugees will create access problems, for example a higher number of migrant patients might use the A&E departments of the NHS while should they have been signposted they could have been registered at a local GP.

5. Higher numbers of people will need legal advice and support after using services in the wrong way: for example the tax credit system is a very complicated system for new communities and a lot of migrants/refugees are in danger of becoming penalised as they did not understand the service so have used it incorrectly.

6. The loss of the opportunity to create a culturally competent workforce in the public sector is worrying as the BME population in Bristol has increased above the national average for children and adults. The annual school census for 2008 showed that 22.5% of pupils are from BME backgrounds as compared with an estimated 10.7% of the population in Bristol as a whole. This is almost a 50% increase compared with the 2004 figure of 18.5%. 36.5% of children in the City’s nursery schools are from BME communities in particularly newly arrived communities.

The MIF has been a catalyst for some valuable work over the last year. It is generating sustainable solutions which are improving cohesion, promoting resilience and reducing pressures on public services. It has either cemented or brought about effective partnerships to address migration and to think about its impact on communities which will continue beyond the lifetime of this particular fund.

Beyond June 2011 there has been no identified resource to support this
important piece of work.

2. Further anticipated cuts
Other funds that currently support voluntary and community sector
organisations to work with vulnerable communities are under threat.

Work on The Station – Bristol’s proposed state of the art youth centre has been put on hold. The £5m funding anticipated from the My Place funding stream is under review.

Nursery free entitlement provision. The Government has announced that nurseries providing free provision will no longer be able to charge a top up fee to parents to cover the gap between the Government’s
funding and the cost of the provision. This means that it will no longer be viable for nurseries to offer free provision, particularly the charities/voluntary sector organisations providing this service.

Financial Inclusion Fund

The Department of Business, Innovation and Skills Financial Inclusion Fund currently funds 16 full time equivalent debt advice workers in advice agencies across Bristol who last year worked with 3,000 clients.

This funding is currently in place until March 2011.

V funding that has supported Youth Volunteering initiatives for the past three years will not continue after March 2011.

Capacitybuilders currently funds voluntary and community sector infrastructure organisations to provide funding advice, training, and volunteer management support to small charities and community organisations working in neighbourhoods in Bristol. This funding is
currently available until March 2011."

Link to this article http://www.voscur.org/system/files/VCSimpactJuly2_0.pdf