Investing in social projects

 agendaNi examines the challenges facing Northern Ireland’s Social Investment Fund. 

The Social Investment Fund (SIF) was set up in 2012 to deliver social change. Its ultimate goal is to make life better for people living in targeted areas by reducing poverty, unemployment and physical deterioration. However, depsite having been allocated £80 million by the Northern Ireland Executive, to date only £4 million has been spent.

The Social Investment Fund is focused on supporting communities to:

•   increase employment opportunities by addressing things such as educational underachievement, lack of skills, access to jobs and making it appealing for businesses to start up in areas which have suffered deprivation;

•   tackle issues such as mental and physical health, use of drugs and alcohol, booming young mother, young people’s involvement in antisocial behaviour and the ability to communicate to work together which can all be associated with deprivation;

•   increase services in the community by improving existing facilities, making the environment better and providing additional facilities where needed and possible;

•   address dereliction in order to make areas more appealing for investment and for those living there. 

The fund is being delivered in partnership with communities across nine social investment zones. Each zone has a steering group with up to 14 members from the business, political, statutory, voluntary and community sectors. The steering group developed plans for each social investment zone and as such will manage the plans. 

The steering groups for each zone were asked to identify areas eligible to seek funding to take forward projects related to poverty, unemployment, increasing services and dereliction. It was agreed that that following measures would be used to decide which areas were eligible. 

•   areas within the top 10 per cent of most deprived Super Output Areas on the Multiple Deprivation Measure 2010;

•   areas within the top 10 per cent of most deprived Super Output Areas on the key indicators of income, employment, education and health;

•   areas which could provide independently verified and robust evidence of objective need linked to the four strategic objectives of the Social Investment Fund. 

At present the steering groups have submitted a total of 89 projects within their plans from across the nine zones. Some of these projects have already been approved while others are still going through a quality assurance review to ensure that only the most robust projects and those that will have the most positive impact within their communities are recommended to go through to the next stage. 

However, despite the programme’s ambitions, UUP leader and Chair of the OFMDFM Committee, Mike Nesbitt has been critical of the handling of the fund. “The story of the Social Investment Fund has been a study in how not to do government,” he said. “10 months after the Social Investment Fund was due to have finished and have spent £80 million on alleviating poverty in the process, the actual spend is only £4 million. 

“This is a damning indictment on the OFMDFM’s administration and the news that they can’t give money away will be greeted with incredulity by hard-pressed communities and voluntary groups across Northern Ireland.”

Yet despite these criticisms, the OFMDFM’s director of finance, Mark Browne suggested that many of the projects are being established and the fund, whilst taking time to be established, was now “beginning to deliver projects on the ground.”