AN organisation will step up its efforts in supporting charities and community groups in Blackburn and Darwen after receiving a £400,000 cash boost from the Government.

Blackburn with Darwen Community Voluntary Service (CVS) has been awarded £395,750 from the £30million Transforming Local Infrastructure Fund.

The service promotes, develops and supports voluntary and community action across the borough.

Chief executive Garth Hodgkinson, who submitted a bid for the money last summer, welcomed the boost.

He said: “It gives us 18 months’ funding to continue what we do, supporting local charities and community groups.

“I think the focus will be on helping local charities and community groups to fundraise.

“We will also be helping them to recruit and support volunteers and will be providing a lot of training for staff and volunteers, so they have the skills to run their groups successfully.

“Another element of it will be liaising with the business community more to get firms to support community action and charities.”

The beneficiaries of the fund, which is designed to help transform and modernise local charity support services, was announced yesterday (2) by Civil Society Minister Nick Hurd.

Blackburn with Darwen CVS is one of more than 70 organisations across the country to receive money.

Mr Hurd said: “This fund is not designed to support 'business as usual' - it's about making things better for the frontline.

“It's about supporting organisations with innovative business plans who want to play their part in modernising the landscape of local infrastructure.

"One of our main priorities is making it easier to run a charity. We will ensure that we back the highest quality infrastructure support so that charities get guidance which is local, relevant and enables them to improve their service delivery.”