The Cabinet Office, for perfectly laudable reasons, is seeking to tackle to hard reach groups of unemployed people in some of our most difficult communities.

A contract was let to a national organisation called Locality, who do a lot of good work, but I had reason to question the 'high risk' policy of funding small community groups when I came across a group called Marsh Farm Outreach (MFO) in Luton.

MFO has received a considerable sum of public funding over the years and it is difficult to see just how this money has benefited the wider community & leads me to question the very policy which enabled Locality to directly fund & hold to account small groups such as MFO.

I contacted the Minister, Nick Hurd, with my concerns & I have to say I remain deeply unhappy with how this policy is playing out.

A further issue with the Cabinet Office policy is the complete absence of any Local Government input - we know our communities & we understand what makes them tick, where the issues are & local councillors are in the main at the heart of cities, towns and villages across the country.

Why I ask is funding provided to what the Cabinet Office accept are "righ risk" groups & local government excluded from the discussions?