HISTORIC PRESS RELEASE : £46m invested to deliver better public services [4 February 2004]
The press release issued by HM Treasury on 4 February 2004.
Innovative schemes to deliver joined-up care for victims and witnesses, developing visitor centres in prisons and reducing the number of children entering the Criminal Justice System, are just some of the winning projects across England to receive a total of £46 million under the ‘Invest To Save’ initiative, announced the Treasury and Cabinet Office today.
The ‘Invest to Save’ initiative provides support for projects that involve joined up public bodies working together to deliver services that are innovative, responsive to local needs and more efficient. This, the sixth round of the Invest to Save Budget, continues to include partnership bids from central government, local authorities and the voluntary sector.
Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Paul Boateng said:
“Since 1999, the Invest to Save Budget has invested £370 million in some 400 projects across the United Kingdom to deliver reform and enhanced levels of service to local people. This investment has helped develop new ways of working – for example, partnerships between voluntary organisations and the public sector as well as better outcomes such as more effective teaching of citizenship and reductions in crime and the fear of crime.
“The Invest to Save Budget has been a catalyst for change across the public and voluntary sector – sharing lessons learned and best practice across regions and departments and so helping to improve service delivery.”
Douglas Alexander, Minister for the Cabinet Office said;
“Improving the delivery of services to the public is a key objective for Government. The ISB programme funds projects that have identified innovative ways to transform the way public services are delivered through multi-agency partnerships. There are other benefits too, which include improvements to the quality and cost effectiveness of the services themselves.”
The new projects receiving funding are:
| 1. Crown Prosecution Service | Crown Prosecution Service led project to deliver, for the first time, a truly joined up partnership approach to provide care for victims and witnesses. | £27,123,000 | England and Wales |
| 2. Small Business Service | Project to develop an on-line facility for government departments to reduce barriers to effective competition for public sector contracts and for improving value for money in public sector procurement. | £1,250,000 | National |
| 3. Youth Justice Board | Project to address the risk factors associated with offending children so helping to reduce the number of children entering the Criminal Justice system | £1,365.000 | England and Wales |
| 4. Community Service Volunteers | Project to reduce the demand for specialist mental health services across London and to create a greater understanding of mental health issues in the broad population | £7,331,000 | London |
| 5. St Mungo’s Inner London Detox Centre | Project to provide a detoxification centre in Central London to offer an alternative to police custody for homeless street drinkers arrested by the Metropolitan Police. | £1,155,000 | London |
| 6. Prison Service | Prison Service led project to deliver n support for families and specifically children who have a parent in custody. | £314,687 | South West |
| 7. Devon and Cornwall Constabulary | Project that establishes a Targeted Drug release programme which will provide access for drug using offenders to pass from the criminal justice system to the treatment system when released from prison | £1,100,000 | South West |
| 8. Bath and Somerset Social Services and Housing Services | Project that establishes a dedicated mobile nursing team providing 24-hour cover designed to take services in a residential location rather than moving a seriously frail person to hospital. | £1,343,300 | South West |
| 9. Bristol City Council | Project to reduce out of authority placements for children with complex mental health, emotional and behavioural difficulties to reduce alienation from their communities and increase their life chances | £810,870 | South West |
| 10. Warrington Advice and Resource Centre | Project to reduce the number of young people running away in Warrington by providing reactive services as well as proactively engaging with families to reduce repeat runaways and preventing siblings duplicating the behaviour. | £458,064 | North West |
| 11. Gloucestershire City Council | Project to develop and deliver a Local Planning toolkit for public service providers and partnerships to plan their neighbourhood and community services using shared information across the different agencies | £100,000 | West Midlands |
| 12. Lincolnshire County Council | Project to educate local people in Rural and Coastal Academies by the development of an integrated curriculum provision to pupils who are out of mainstream school; and an area based identification, screening and support service for adults with dyslexia. | £1,092,000 | East Midlands |
| 13. Peterborough City Council | Project to create an integrated network of service providers, statutory agencies and support workers, which will ensure the successful integration of new arrivals into Peterborough in the short, medium and long term. | £2,262,400 | East Midlands |
