Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, with reference to Government grants statistics 2020 to 2021, published on 31 March 2022, what assessment her Department has made of the effectiveness of the Community Radio 2021 Fund

The Community Radio Fund is an annual grant scheme, funded by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and administered by Ofcom, into which community radio stations across the UK can bid for funding for projects that help support the sector’s development. In 2020/21, the Fund’s core funding was supplemented by an additional sum to support efforts by community radio stations in helping address loneliness during the coronavirus pandemic.

The department sets objectives for grant funding when designing the grant scheme and allocates funding in accordance with those objectives.

An independent report evaluating the impact which CRF funding has had on community radio stations was published in March 2022.