On 01 September 2022, the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) announced that up to £24 million will be invested over the next three years to support women in or at risk of contact with the criminal justice system. You can watch a video from the MoJ launching the funding here. 

Three grant funding competitions have now been launched. Women’s voluntary sector organisations can apply to the first two. 

Funding for core costs 

The first will offer £4 million in each of the financial years 2022/23, 2023/24 and 2024/25 to pay the core costs of women’s voluntary sector organisations. This competition will closely follow the model used successfully in the last two financial years.  Organisations will be able to bid for a minimum of £60,000 and a maximum of £150,000 per year. Recognising that we are already a long way through this financial year, the first year’s payment may be on a pro-rata basis. 

The core costs competition can be accessed at https://ministryofjusticecommercial.bravosolution.co.uk/ under ITT_6494. 

Funding to extend services, or for new services or interventions 

The second competition will offer £2.8 million in each of the financial years 2022/23, 2023/24 and 2024/25 to women’s voluntary sector organisations to offer new services or interventions for women in or at risk of contact with the criminal justice system. While the exact design of new services/interventions will be shaped by local needs, grant applications in this category will need to show how those applying plan to reach more women and/or provide new services. Examples of what would be in scope include:   

• Extending geographical reach through longer opening hours, outreach or pop-up services particularly where there is sparse provision. 

• Locating new staff in police stations and courts to signpost women into services and support to address underlying needs at the earliest opportunity, increasing the chances for successful diversion. 

• 24/7 supported residential accommodation e.g. a residential women’s centre style alternative to custody for appropriate women or a “housing first” approach. The MoJ is particularly interested in proposals offering residential provision specifically for women who would otherwise receive a short custodial sentence of up to a year and who are subject to a community sentence with a residency requirement to live at the provision. A residency requirement would mean the provision would be subject to Prisons and Probation Ombudsman independent investigations. 

• Supporting women into training and jobs through links with local colleges and employers.   

• Bespoke provision for particularly vulnerable or marginalised women such as non-British nationals and ethnically diverse, neurodivergent or young women. 

The intention is not to duplicate service provision already provided under the women’s commissioned rehabilitative services contracts, but to encourage women’s voluntary sector organisations to think creatively and innovatively about gaps in existing service provision and how these might be addressed. 

The new services or interventions funding competition can be accessed at https://ministryofjusticecommercial.bravosolution.co.uk/ under ITT_6495. 

If you plan to apply for either of these funding competitions and are not yet registered on the grants portal, find out more on the Clinks website here. 

Funding for statutory organisations to implement a Whole System Approach

Women’s voluntary sector organisations cannot apply to the third funding competition, but can work with statutory organisations to encourage them to apply. The fund is designed to support local areas to develop partnership working to improve outcomes for women in or at risk of contact with the criminal justice system. Seed funding will be offered to a range of statutory bodies (e.g. Police and Crime Commissioners, local authorities, police forces, local criminal justice boards) across England and Wales to improve the integration of women’s services in local areas into a Whole System Approach to address women’s complex needs.   

Organisations that support women living in or returning to Wales, should ensure that proposals align with the priorities in the Women’s Justice Blueprint. 

The budget for the third grant scheme is £3.6m across the three years, with £0.9m available in FY22/23, £1.8m in FY23/24 and £0.9 in FY24/25. The minimum that can be applied for is £125,000 in total over the three years. The maximum is £300,000 in total over the three years. This can be accessed  https://ministryofjusticecommercial.bravosolution.co.uk/ under ITT_6488. 

How to apply 

These funding competitions are now live. To apply for any of these grants you must log in to the Ministry of Justice sourcing portal.  

The ITT numbers for each competition are:  

• Core costs - ITT_6494 

• Funding for new or extended services - ITT_6495  

• Partnership work at local level - ITT_6488  

Once you have located the opportunities you should click on the relevant links and then, to access full details for each, you will need to click the 'express interest' button to view all the buyer attachments for each ITT.  

The funding announcement comes after a sustained effort by women’s centres and Clinks to push for long term, sustainable funding for the women’s sector working in criminal justice. We are pleased to see that the grants are multi-year and will cover core costs, which is so important to ensure that services can fund their vital rehabilitative work and plan for the future. 

Women’s services provide essential support for women in contact with the criminal justice system. In the past, funding has too often been short-term and in the form of contracts, which narrow the parameters through which voluntary organisations can provide support and mean that funding falls off a cliff edge. We know from consulting our members that commissioning processes have tended to be complicated and exclude smaller specialist voluntary organisations. We hope that with this new round of funding, the MoJ will make the funds accessible to a wider pool of women’s specialist voluntary organisations. 

We hope that the voluntary sector will continue to be viewed as a strategic partner in the delivery of resettlement and rehabilitation services, not just as a service delivery vehicle. 

Clinks Director of Influence and Communications, Jessica Mullen, attends the Women in the Criminal Justice System expert group, where she will feed in Clinks’ views about the recent funding announcements. 

If you have any questions, please contact Laurence.Fiddler@justice.gov.uk regarding the core costs funding and the services and interventions funding, and Michael.Coe@justice.gov.uk regarding the local integration funding.