Healthy Living Centres (HLCs) have been handed what the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Wellbeing Nicola Sturgeon has described as a “funding lifeline”

Sturgeon announced today that the Scottish Government is establishing a Healthy Living Centres Transition Fund of £2.5m to provide support to centres at risk of closure due to funding shortfalls as a result of their Big Lottery funding coming to an end.

This transitional funding will be provided as one-off support to help Healthy Living Centres through a period of uncertainty for their future, where the end of funding from the Big Lottery Fund has coincided with significant changes affecting Health Boards and Local Authorities, the principal supporters of most centres.

The aim of Healthy Living Centres is to promote good health and reduce health inequalities in Scotland's most disadvantaged communities.

Making the announcement during a visit to the Gorbals Healthy Living Network in Glasgow, Sturgeon said: “I have agreed to set up this transition fund in recognition of the valuable and unique contribution that Healthy Living Centres make to addressing health issues in some of our most deprived communities.

“I recognise that many of these centres across Scotland have faced a period of uncertainty in recent months and I hope that today's funding announcement will bring an end to this.

“Centres like The Gorbals Healthy Living Network have a key role in achieving our vision of a healthier Scotland, particularly through tackling obesity, poor diet and health inequalities.

“In a number of areas, steps are being taken by NHS Boards and other community partners to support the continuation of community health initiatives and I want to encourage these organisations to continue this work to make HLCs sustainable for the future.”


Funding will be distributed to HLCs through local NHS boards, and will be provided only to those centres which have good prospects for achieving sustainability beyond the transition funding, continue to have the support of their local partners and can deliver activities that meet local needs.

The support will be available during the period from now until the end of 2008/09 and is intended for core costs of running the HLCs only.

A report from the HLC Alliance, which representatives HLCs from across Scotland to highlight the loss of core funding for HLCs, said that “a survey of 29 HLCs in Scotland in October 2006 revealed that the projects secured an additional £10m funding from local funding sources over and above their Big Lottery Fund grant".

Labour said that the funding was “too little and too late”.

Labour's Shadow Public Health minister Dr Richard Simpson said: “These centres are providing real services to the poorest, and unhealthiest, people in Scotland helping them live healthier lives.

“SNP's blasé admission that centres are closing across Scotland under their watch is astonishing.

"These organisations have shown to be effective in meeting community health needs and it beggars belief that the SNP is willing to stand by and watch as these organisations go under.

“Nicola Sturgeon will try to say that it’s up to local health boards to decide – but she is effectively reducing the money to health boards by £265million and directing health boards how to spend much of what’s left – so often they have little choice.”