£100m of youth grants but poverty target is missed

from the Guardian

Nicholas Watt

A charity helping children in inner-city areas will be saved from closure today when the government announces a £100m injection of funding for youth groups.

The Kids Company, which helps 11,000 children a year, is to receive £12m from a youth charity fund to be announced today by the children's secretary, Ed Balls. It will be welcomed by supporters of Kids Company, including the Prince of Wales and the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Camila Batmanghelidjh, its founder, had warned it was difficult for the government to fund the £4.5m a year for her charity because there was "no pot of money" to help children who do not pass through statutory authorities but came "from the streets", as 95% of the charity's do.

Balls will announce a fund of £100m over three years for youth charities, with £27m earmarked for five "pathfinder" charities, one being the Kids Company.

The government will hail the cash as a sign of its commitment to directing help at poorer children as official figures show Gordon Brown will struggle to meet his target of halving child poverty by 2010.

A paper by the Department for Work and Pensions said for the first time that the 2010 target is likely to be missed. "Other targets have become more challenging than originally envisaged because of economic and demographic changes," it said.