What is the Fairer Futures Fund?

Launched in 2022, the Fairer Futures Fund will see a total £22.2m being allocated to new community-based innovative projects across Birmingham and Solihull with funding being distributed up until the end of the 2027/28 financial year.

The Fund forms part of our strategic vision to radically transform how health and social care services are delivered in Birmingham and Solihull, integrating services so they are delivered as close as possible to citizens’ homes and shifting our focus towards preventing ill-health.

It funds projects either led by or run in collaboration with the Voluntary, Community, Faith and Social Enterprise (VCFSE) sector that will support our efforts to reduce inequalities in health.  Projects are diverse and are being delivered at a grassroots level in the heart of communities – focused on those most underrepresented and underserved who are often facing disparities in health.

Our Birmingham and Solihull Place Committees - made up of representatives across the NHS, local authorities and the VCFSE sector - have responsibility for allocating these funds.  Their specific remit is to act with autonomy and ensure decisions are made strategically, locally, and in the best interests of the health and care needs of the local population.

Birmingham Fairer Futures Fund

Birmingham City-wide Small Grants

The City-wide Small Grants Fund totals £2.46 million and supports community-led projects that tackle health inequalities affecting communities of identity and experience across the city.

Funded projects demonstrate:

• Innovative, new or enhanced services that address long-standing health and wellbeing inequalities

• An evidence-informed approach, showing how the project will contribute to fund priorities and deliver impact on patient behaviours, knowledge and/or clinical outcomes

• A clear focus on one or more priority areas, including:

  • Best start in life

  • Healthier lives in communities

  • Better outcomes through earlier intervention and treatment

  • Empowering and connecting communities

Birmingham City-wide Partnership Fund

The Birmingham City-wide Partnership Fund totals £5.74 million and supports large-scale, community-led projects that address health inequalities affecting communities of identity and experience across the city.

Funded projects:

• Deliver large-scale interventions with a city-wide reach, beyond a single ward or neighbourhood

• Act as a catalyst for partnership working between statutory and voluntary, community, faith and social enterprise (VCFSE) organisations

• Strengthen co-production with communities, using lived experience to shape priorities and solutions

• Support integrated, effective and efficient care through collaboration

Projects focus on one or more Fairer Futures Fund priority areas:

• Children and young people aged 5+

• Mental health and wellbeing

• Healthy ageing, including reducing emergency hospital admissions due to falls in adults aged over 65

• Cardiovascular health

• Respiratory health

Birmingham Locality Small Grants Fund

The Locality Small Grants Fund totals £2.46 million and supports community-led projects addressing health inequalities experienced by communities of place across Birmingham’s five localities: North, West, East, South and Central.

The fund supports locally delivered projects designed to tackle long-standing health and wellbeing inequalities.

Projects focus on one of the Fairer Futures Fund priority areas:

• Best start in life

• Healthier lives in communities

• Better outcomes through earlier intervention and treatment

• Empowering and connecting communities

Birmingham Locality Partnership Fund

The Locality Partnership Fund totals £5.74 million and supports large-scale, community-led projects addressing health inequalities experienced by communities of place across Birmingham’s five localities: North, West, East, South and Central. 

The fund acts as a catalyst for partnership working between statutory and voluntary sector organisations, supporting integrated, effective and efficient care. A strong emphasis is placed on co-production with communities, ensuring local challenges, priorities and lived experience informed project design and delivery.

Birmingham Small Grants

Mental health workshops reaching hundreds of schoolchildren in some of Birmingham’s most deprived communities were among more than 30 innovative projects delivered by voluntary, community, faith and social enterprise (VCFSE) organisations, supported through small grants totalling over £300,000 from the Fairer Futures Fund.

These small grants represent the first round of funding awarded through the Fairer Futures Fund and were allocated by the Birmingham Place Committee, a partnership bringing together the NHS, Birmingham Voluntary Services Council and Birmingham City Council.

Evaluation

For all of the sub-funds listed above, projects will be expected to have a clear rationale for how they will achieve the change in health outcome proposed. 

The Birmingham City Council Public Health toolkit will be used across the programmes to measure outcomes. In December 2023, Birmingham’s Public Health Team hosted a series of webinars to provide information and advice on measuring impact. Recordings of these can be found on the Birmingham Public Health YouTube channel.

Birmingham Measurement Toolbox

The Birmingham Measurement Toolbox introduces standardised demographic questions, as well as 13 standardised impact measures. You can use the questions from the impact measures toolkits and the demographic questionnaire in the toolbox to help you understand if different interventions are more effective for different groups.

Please note that whilst there may be projects for which the measurement toolkit is not appropriate (such as those that aim to work indirectly with the public e.g. through training and connecting), these will nonetheless require robust evaluation measures.

Solihull Fairer Futures Fund

Solihull Small Grants

Voluntary, community, faith and social enterprise (VCFSE) organisations in Solihull have launched 17 new and innovative projects to improve health and care for local residents, following the award of nearly £200,000 in small grants. The projects are now underway across the borough, funded through the Fairer Futures Fund. 

Solihull Early Implementers Scheme

Three major projects are underway in Solihull, thanks to over £1.6m being allocated from the Fairer Futures Fund’s Solihull Early Implementers Scheme to improve health and care for residents.