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The draft Levels of Need document aims to set out a clear, understandable description of the level of need that should be present in order to access certain levels of services across the city. It will be discussed at the Early Help Summit on the 14 May.

The main purpose of the Neighbourhood Learning in Deprived Communities (NLDC) fund is to reach disadvantaged communities and individuals, to enable them to participate in learning and to progress towards further learning and/or sustainable employment.

Manchester City Council’s (MCC) and Manchester Adult Education Service’s (MAES) priority is to tackle the issue of worklessness amongst key groups in the most deprived wards of the city, particularly those residents in receipt of out of work benefits. Therefore this is the target group for this funding.

Big Issue Invest are calling upon early stage social businesses, especially those based outside London and the South East to apply for the Corporate Social Venturing (CSV) 2015 programme which has officially launched. The CSV programme is specifically tailored for early stage social businesses that often face challenges when it comes to securing finance.

Against the current climate of cuts and austerity, developing sustainable businesses that tackle some of society’s biggest challenges is more important than ever.

Social prescribing has become a key agenda. VSNW think that social prescribing could provide an important way to drive change, for the benefit of local people, that focusses on the strengths of our sector.

In order to help VSNW make the case for the sector’s role, they would like to find out what’s happening, what’s already being commissioned and who would like to be involved in this agenda as it develops. In order to do this, they have set up a short survey.