Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, with reference to Government grants statistics 2020 to 2021, published on 31 March 2022, what assessment his Department has made of the effectiveness of the Women's Community Sector Core Costs Funding grant.

The Women’s Community Sector Core Costs Funding Grant 2020-21 provided one-off grants to women’s community sector organisations to stabilise their financial position and ensure the continued availability of community-based support for women in or at risk of contact with the criminal justice system. Each organisation that received funding signed a grant agreement that included a requirement to provide a monitoring report following the conclusion of the grant funding period. The monitoring report required organisations to report on whether the grant had: enabled additional support for service users; had improved or expanded partnership working; and the impact on the organisation’s financial sustainability. We have recently awarded further core costs grant funding for the period 2022 to 2025 and we will be further developing the evidence base for the effectiveness of this type of funding through monitoring and evaluation of outcomes and performance.