While Tory-run Suffolk County Council has slashed its support for our local voluntary sector partners, Labour-run Ipswich Borough Council continues to support the local organisations which do so much for our town.

Ipswich organisations, including the local Citizens Advice Bureau, Lighthouse Women’s Aid, Suffolk Law Centre and the Ipswich Play Bus are set to receive grant-aid from Ipswich Borough Council to help them deliver their services to the people of the town.

The Council has an ongoing programme to grant funding to cover some day-to-day running costs of an extensive range of voluntary and community organisations. The Council knows the valuable contribution that these voluntary and community organisations make to the town and are keen to support them and has maintained its level of funding for this purpose.

The services that will be supported if the recommendations are agreed upon include:

• Weekly drop-in Debt Advice and Benefit Advice clinics and support by telephone and email, helped by a £95,000 award to Ipswich and District Citizens Advice Bureau.
• The Chapman Centre, run by the Ipswich Housing Action Group, provides 7 days a week homelessness advice centre for marginalised and vulnerable adults and other services such as showers, laundry, postal address and hot nutritional lunches. They would be helped by a £40,000 grant from the Council
• Asylum seekers will receive help with a drop-in advice service, family support, employment service, health advice and more from the £10,000 grant from the Council to Suffolk Refugee Support.

The other organisations recommended to receive grants are:

Ipswich Furniture Project; Families in Need (FIND); Suffolk Rape Crisis; KARIBU African Women’s Support Group; ICENI Ipswich (support vulnerable families); BSC Multicultural Services (address issues of deprivation and disadvantage); BSEVC (community transport); Ipswich and Suffolk Council for Racial Equality (ISCRE); ActivLives (health and well-being), Suffolk Young People’s Health Project (4YP); Ipswich Disabled Advice Bureau; Volunteering Matters; Home-Start Suffolk (supporting families); PHOEBE (support BAME and migrant women to live free from violence); Community Action Suffolk; Outreach Youth; Inspire Suffolk (services for young people); Rock Paper Scissors (helping children transition from isolation); Suffolk Family Carers, Papworth Trust (supporting adults with mild to moderate learning disabilities); Suffolk Mind; Future Female Society; Out Loud Music Community Interest Company (provide people with SEN and mental health issues with support); Phoenix Project Ipswich (reduce social isolation & improve wellbeing for vulnerable people); Student Life; Ipswich Community Media and Cancer Campaign Suffolk.

These would be supported in a variety of arrangements – existing three-year grants, new three-year grants and new one-year grants. £365,000 is proposed to be granted to the organisations by the Council in the financial year 2022/23. This matter is an item to be discussed by the Executive of the Council and full details of the grants proposed are available in the meeting’s papers which are available here  (pages 186-190).

Ipswich Labour’s Bryony Rudkin, Deputy Leader of Ipswich Borough Council, says:

“I’m really pleased the Council can help community organisations that provide vital services in the town and who would also find it much harder to do so without help from IBC.

“Ipswich Borough Council works well with the voluntary sector and we know that helping these organisations is key to all the great work they do.”