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Dept for Environment Food and Rural Affairs

Answer

Andrew George: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what the (a) budget, (b) expenditure and (c) amount spent on administration was for each area-based initiative for which her Department and its predecessors have been responsible in each year since 1997. [177108] Alun Michael: The information is as follows: 1. Warm Zones Defra and DTI jointly contributed £0.5 million each towards the pilot programme of five Warm Zones to run from 2001-04, which brings together a range of public and private sector funding. An independent evaluation of the pilots is being carried out by the Energy Saving Trust on behalf of Defra. Final results of the evaluation are expected at the end of 2004. 2. Market Towns Initiative £37 million has been provided to the Regional Development Agencies and the Countryside Agency since 2000 to reinvigorate small rural towns, help them meet the needs of local people and provide access to a wide range of retail, leisure, professional and public services and enables regional partnerships to target towns in their region according to selection criteria agreed regionally. A full assessment of this initiative is under way. 3. Voluntary and Community Sector Infrastructure Programme The Department is to provide £10 million over the period 2003-04 to 2005-06 for capacity building in the voluntary sector in rural areas. During 2003-04 £86,000 has gone toward developing Voluntary and Community Sector consortia across the existing or former shire county areas. The remainder will be spent during 2004-05 and 2005-06 on the delivery of generalist and specialist support to the Sector frontline bodies in rural areas. The first strand will go towards priorities identified by these county consortia, the second will be to increase the uptake of financial entitlements among pensioners in some rural areas and the third will be go towards researching the potential for sustainable income generation through trading by rural voluntary and community organisations.

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

177108; 422 c789W

Session

2003-04

Subjects

Community development Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Finance Expenditure Fuel poverty Voluntary organisations Rural areas Regional assistance Warm zones programme Market towns

Contains statistics

Yes

Link

View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk