What is NRF?
In January 2001, the Social Exclusion Unit produced a national strategy document, ‘New Commitment to Neighbourhood Renewal National Strategy and Action Plan’. The strategy endorsed the overall vision that: “ within 20 years no-one should be seriously disadvantaged by where they live’’.
The strategy holds two long-term visions:
- “To have lower worklessness, less crime, better health, better skills and better housing and physical environment in all the poorest neighbourhoods”
- “To narrow the gap on these measures between the most deprived neighbourhoods and the rest of the country”
Neighbourhood Renewal is about reversing the spiral of decline in the most disadvantaged communities. The strategy is about raising the quality of key public services in deprived areas and attacking their root problems.
Nationally, the strategy’s delivery is led by the Neighbourhood Renewal Unit, set up in April 2001, and based in the Dept of Communities & Local Government (DCLG). At a neighbourhood level, local strategic partnerships (LSP's) are tasked to set priorities for their areas and develop renewal strategies that fit local needs. The LSP in Newcastle is known as The Newcastle Partnership, and includes representatives from the statutory, voluntary, community and business sectors.
Residents in renewal areas are crucial to this process, particularly in identifying their neighbourhood’s main problems and deciding how to tackle them and in Newcastle local people are key partners in the strategy development.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer established the Neighbourhood Renewal Fund (NRF) grant as a result of the government spending review in 2000. It is intended that the grant will contribute towards the achievement of Government Floor targets to close the gap between deprived areas and the rest of the country and Local Neighbourhood Renewal Strategy (LNRS) targets agreed by each LSP.
The guidance from the Neighbourhood Renewal Unit (NRU) makes it very clear that NRF is to be used as a targeted fund. It can be used in any way that will tackle deprivation in the most deprived neighbourhoods, taking account of the need to respond to both national targets and locally determined priorities. The grant is intended as time-limited funding to ‘kick-start’ the most effective, long-term targeting of mainstream resources to tackle deprivation in the most deprived areas, i.e. the mainstreaming of neighbourhood renewal.
The guidance goes on to strongly encourage, where service quality should be improved, that the NRF grant should be devoted to the sustainable improvement of mainstream services, provided that the funding benefits the most deprived areas.
The Newcastle Partnership, in its role as the Local Strategic Partnership, is responsible for overseeing the approval of the allocation of the NRF grant.
To undertake the detailed work it has delegated this function to the Neighbourhood Renewal sub group and a number of Theme groups. The NR sub group meets on the last Wednesday of every month to receive reports and consider applications for funding.
The NRF grant is operated in an open and transparent manner in accordance with the Compact agreement between the Local Authority, Partnership Members and the Voluntary and Community Sector Compact.
The NRF grant should therefore be spent on improving mainstream and other services provided not only by the local authority in receipt of the grant, but also by the range of organisations that are members of the Newcastle Partnership.
Newcastle City Council is the Accountable Body with responsibility for managing the approval and monitoring of projects, the payment of grant to projects and reporting to Government Office North East.
The day to day management and administration of the Fund is carried out by the NRF Team, located within the Regeneration Directorate of the City Council. A number of Senior Officers have a Head of Service role in which they oversee one or more projects.
Democratic Services support the administration of sub group meetings.
Click here to view the NRF Management Structure Diagram
Click below to view the NRF Footprint maps: