Nottingham Financial Resilience Partnership is delighted to announce it has received five year funding from the National Lottery Community Fund that will cover the costs of a part-time work and of activity costs.  This is the first time ever we’ve had any consistent funding since the work began in late 2014, so we’re thrilled !

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MAY 20

PRESS RELEASE 12.5.20

New plans begin to help people in financial difficulty in the city – £136k Lottery funding awarded.
From this week the ‘Nottingham Financial Resilience Partnership’ will receive funding of £136k over 5yrs, to work on tackling the money problems that many people are experiencing.

This will include work on high cost credit, preventing/ reducing debt problems, increasing incomes, access to banking, financial education for schools and supporting saving and much more. The fact that it has come at the same time that so many more in our city have suddenly been plunged into financial difficulty due to the COVID 19 impact, makes the need for this work even more crucial.

Nottingham Financial Resilience Partnership has been awarded 5 year funding from the National Lottery Community Fund and it starts this week. It is to continue and build on work that began originally in 2014, working in local neighbourhoods and then, from 2016, the city wide partnership was created. Throughout that time it has operated on occasional seed funding and goodwill. For the very first time, the Partnership will be able to work to deliver real change in the city.

 
“We are absolutely delighted the National Lottery have awarded this”, said Emma Bates, who leads the Partnership’s work.

 
“For the first time, we can start to work properly to drive change for people’s financial circumstances. All services in the city are committed to work together on this. The fact that COVID 19 has now happened, dramatically increases the challenge we’ll have, as we know the level of need will be very high.”
Nottingham was already one of the most over-indebted cities in the country and has some of the worst statistics for other measures of financial well-being.

Martyn Neal, Chair of the Partnership said, “All too often funding is directed, understandably, towards dealing with immediate problems. This is, of course, essential but it can leave root causes unaddressed. This funding for the Partnership will allow work over a period of years to lead to real change in the financial resilience and capability of the people in Nottingham.”

Councillor Rebecca Langton, Portfolio Holder for Communities at Nottingham City Council and partnership member, said: “We welcome this funding because it enables the partnership to continue its good work over the past few years, which we know is more important now than ever.

“We ran a successful money advice campaign at the City Council last year which offered support to households who were either struggling with debt, or worried about it. This funding complements that and enables the partnership to continue delivering much-needed and valued services at this critical time.
“We cannot escape the fact, however, that austerity and national policies on changes to the way people receive benefits, plus rising in-work poverty, have been totally unnecessary and made lives much harder. The Government has much more work to do.”

Readers will recall that actor Michael Sheen visited some of the Partnership’s work a year ago as part of his End High Cost Credit Alliance, which featured in the Nottingham Post in May 19.

Emma concluded by saying, “The work of the Partnership will drive long term change, but we also want to make sure those in financial difficulty right now are getting the help available. If you need help with money issues, please don’t wait. Please look at the information that can help you, right now, on the webpage: www.asklion.co.uk/money It gives lots of information and details on the services that can help you with money issues. Also, please look out for your copy of the Arrow delivered to every household in mid/ late April. This also includes some of this information and telephone numbers.”

ENDS
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