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Over £1.8 million is to be invested in supporting the infrastructure of disability organisations across the UK. Five different organisations are set to share in the cash injection from Big Lottery Fund’s BASIS (Building and Sustaining Infrastructure Support) programme.

Today’s announcements sees a total of 119 projects across England receiving close to £50 million to support third sector infrastructure either on a national or local level.

Sanjay Dighe, Chair of the England Committee at the Big Lottery Fund commented, “We are delighted to fund such a wide range of organisations which support disabled people throughout England. The funding will enable different organisations to communicate more effectively and share local and national knowledge amongst each other. This can only benefit the many disabled people who both need and rely on the expertise provided by these essential networks.

“The BASIS awards will strengthen the sector through a wide range of partnerships to provide expert, consistent and sustainable services, leaving the VCS well equipped to increase efficiency and maximise impact. This is particularly important within the current economic climate but also paves the way for a stronger charity sector throughout the region for many years to come.”

Merseyside Disability Federation will manage a grant of £499,939 for the North West Disability Infrastructure Partnership (NWDIP) working in partnership with five different disability organisations across the region. The partnership will focus on ensuring consistently good and accessible infrastructure disability services including training and access information to both disability and generic VCS infrastructure organisations.

Louise Barry, Chief Executive Officer at Merseyside Disability Federation said, “The Big Lottery BASIS funding is a fabulous opportunity for us to develop a Disability Infrastructure Partnership across the North West working together to improve opportunities for disabled people to influence policy, service provision and support by ensuring that voluntary and community sector disability organisations are provided with consistently good and accessible infrastructure services.”

Derbyshire Coalition for Inclusive Living will use a grant of £306,695 to work with two other voluntary organisations to create the Derbyshire Infrastructure Support for VCS organisations supporting disabled people. Key to the programme will be developing networks between VCS and disability organisations across Derbyshire at local and regional levels to enable disabled people to gain better access to relevant resources, services and information.

Robert Seven, Finance Director at Derbyshire Coalition for Inclusive Living said, “The funding is great news, enabling voluntary sector infrastructure organisations to come together to support frontline disability groups to engage in and influence local policy and strategy development. It will help us to share and improve skills and best practice and enhance the inclusion of disabled people in the civic life of Derbyshire.”

The disability BASIS awards announced today are: 

Further Information

Big Lottery Fund Press Office: 020 7211 1888
Out of hours contact: 07867 500 572
Public Enquiries Line: 08454 102030
Textphone: 0845 6021 659

Full details of the Big Lottery Fund programmes and grant awards are available on the website: www.biglotteryfund.org.uk

Notes to Editors

• BASIS is the first Big Lottery Fund programme to focus solely on developing voluntary and community sector infrastructure. The scheme aims to fund a more expert, consistently available and sustainable set of support services for front line voluntary and community organisations across England.
• The Big Lottery Fund (BIG), the largest distributor of National Lottery good cause funding, is responsible for giving out half the money raised for good causes by the National Lottery.
• BIG is committed to bringing real improvements to communities and the lives of people most in need and has been rolling out grants to health, education, environment and charitable causes across the UK since June 2004. The Fund was formally established by Parliament on 1 December 2006.
• Since the National Lottery began in 1994, 28p from every pound spent by the public has gone to good causes. As a result, over £22 billion has now been raised and more than 300,500 grants awarded across arts, sport, heritage, charities, health, education and the environment.