£500 million EU funding agreed for N Ireland

Howard Lake | 13 November 2007 | News

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EU funding of £500 million over the next six years has been confirmed for Northern Ireland by the European Commission. The money will go towards three general areas – regional competitiveness, peace and reconciliation and cross border co-operation which now includes western Scotland.

Of most interest to the voluntary sector will be the Peace III programme which will allocate money under two themes, Reconciling Communities and Contributing to a Shared Society. The first theme will receive funding of ‚€140-‚€200 million while the second theme will allocate ‚€80-‚€130 million

The application and delivery mechanism for the Peace III funding is different from the previous round, with councils being given a key role. The complicating factor is that councils are still in consultation about a reduction in the number of councils and it is difficult to predict the boundaries of the new bodies that will emerge

Belfast City Council, whose boundaries are not likely to change radically, is the most advanced in its plans to distribute the ‚€18 million it will be dispensing and has published a draft consultation document on its website. Again the delivery mechanism will be different, with the councils inviting tenders from other organisations with appropriate expertise to deliver specific actions under the objectives of the Peace Plan. They say they expect the majority of funding to be taken up by large grants (£100,000 and above) and this will be allocated through a mix of open calls and commissioned work on thematic areas.

They have not, however, ruled out a small grants programme and may use Peace III money to enhance the council’s existing small grants programme. Details can be found on the council’s website under the ‘good relations’ section.

About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale. He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.