Rosemary Butler has welcomed Education Minister Jane Hutt's latest £10.4 million package for voluntary groups  who help families and children, and says it will speed up the Assembly's bid to halve child poverty by 2010.

The Minister also guaranteed further funding for childcare projects in order to help parents get back into work.

Mrs Butler said:

"Support for voluntary groups such as playgroups, kids' clubs and nurseries is vital in areas like Newport, and children will get the sort of start in life that they need.

 ''I am delighted that the Assembly Government will support a successor to the Genesis Wales project. At the end of last year, the project had provided over 10,000 childcare places and was able to give young mums the support they needed to get back into work.

'' This kind of grass roots support to end child poverty will ensure we can eradicate child poverty in Wales by 2020.''

Background note:

The Genesis Wales project enables hard to reach, economically inactive parents to access learning, training and work opportunities by providing guidance and free childcare.  It received £12.5m funding over three years under Objective 1 and Objective 3, and individual local authority partnerships are delivering Genesis Wales projects across the country.  

At the end of December 2007, Genesis had assisted nearly 13,000 beneficiaries, the total target for the project, and had also provided well in excess of 10,000 childcare places, against an overall target of 8,500.

The project closes at the end of March 2008 but the Welsh Assembly Government is giving priority to developing Expressions of Interest and business plans for successor projects.

Local authorities have been guaranteed continuation costs, if required, up to a maximum of £600,000 in total across Wales, for one quarter from 1st April 2008, to prevent job losses and ensure continuity between projects.

Wednesday, January 23