Written question asked by Mark Durkan (Social Democratic & Labour Party) on Tuesday, 28 March 2006, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Thursday, 30 March 2006. It was answered by Shaun Woodward (Labour) on Tuesday, 18 April 2006 on behalf of the Northern Ireland Office.

Children's Fund

Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what projects originally funded by the Executive Programme Funds Children's Fund are operating; what provision will be made to allocate resources to those projects from the £14.6 million voluntary children's funding package announced on 6 March; how those resources will be allocated; and what the timescale is for allocation.

Answer: Ninety-seven of the one hundred projects originally supported by the Children's Fund continue to receive grant assistance from the Fund. Three projects experienced implementation difficulties at an early stage and terminated their activities. Moneys have been set aside from the additional £14.6 million announced by the Secretary of State to help existing voluntary and community sector groups in their work with disadvantaged children and young people, to continue support to these projects until March 2008, as long as the assistance is still required by them, and subject to satisfactory progress being made, and monitoring and accountability requirements being satisfied.

Secondary information