Cross-cutting themes

Programme cross-cutting themes

The Building Better Opportunities (BBO) programme has 2 cross-cutting themes, mainstreamed across all partnership work and project delivery. The 2 themes help ensure that BBO delivers fairer, greener engagement and support for a huge range of people:

environmental sustainable development
equality and equal opportunities

For each of the 2 themes, all BBO partnerships (grant holders and their partner organisations) are required to upkeep relevant policies and specific action plans to demonstrate progress over time. These policies and plans are subject to regular scrutiny through quarterly reporting, periodical audits and evaluation.

The 2 themes hold deep resonance for communities, VCSE (voluntary, charity and social enterprise) organisations and The National Lottery Community Fund alike. Indeed, the two themes loudly chime with 2 of the guiding principles inside The National Lottery Community Fund: climate action and EDI (equity, diversity, inclusion).

BBO’s dual focus on environment or climate action and equalities (EDI)

BBO is a significant programme: over £500 million of multi-annual funding since 2016, supporting well over 100 partnerships (approx. 2,000 organisations, majority VCSE or voluntary sector).

That large scale and multi-annual nature is due to BBO having been co-financed, through The National Lottery Community Fund investment alongside European Social and Investment Funding (part of European Social Funding). Certain EU policy drivers have underpinned the BBO programme since its initial design and from its launch in 2016. These policy pieces are like the DNA of BBO, they span ‘social inclusion’, ‘combating poverty’, and ‘combating discrimination of any kind’.

Such clear policy pieces helped shape the programme’s Equality and Equal Opportunities cross-cutting theme. As for the Environmental cross-cutting theme, the programme’s main aims of boosting employability and employment, as well as training and education, directly relate to only two of the three sustainable development goals – the social and the financial – that have become the international standard since the turn of this century. The third goal – environmental sustainability – was effectively missing. So the focus on environment/climate action made sense as the other cross-cutting theme actioned during this programme.

More on the two cross-cutting themes within BBO

Explore the links below to understand more about the 2 important themes that are mainstreamed across all BBO partnership projects throughout England. The key takeaways refer to both themes, taken together, and is followed by a dedicated section for each theme.

Read the key takeaways from the cross-cutting themes (National Archive).

Environmental sustainable development (climate action)

Find records of these in the National Archive:

Equality and equal opportunities