The City Executive Board on 19 September 2017 would be asked to note the results of the grant monitoring and the positive impact the community and voluntary sector is making in the city. This item provided an  opportunity for the Scrutiny Committee to make recommendations to the City Executive Board.

The Executive Board Member for Culture and Communities introduced the report. That the Council was able to support so many groups and organisations to the tune of almost £1.5m was most welcome, a view shared by the Committee. The support offered to smaller groups was particularly appreciated by them. It was noteworthy that a significant proportion of the grants was directed to support those members of the community facing financial difficulties and or who were homeless.

Azul Strong, Community Officer, attending the meeting on behalf of Julia Tomkins, drew attention to some of the key elements of the report including the additional amounts matched or levered into the community for every £1 in each category of grant.

The report’s principal purpose was to report back on the programme for 2016/17. Many of the matters raised and recommendations related to the future programme and reporting of it. This would be the subject of a future report to the committee in October. The Committee agreed therefore to hold back on making recommendations that didn’t directly relate to monitoring.

In a detailed discussion the following points and recommendations were considered..

·         It was noted that the data in the report relied to a significant extent on self-assessment by those in receipt of grants and should, therefore, be treated with a little caution (notwithstanding the evidently overall positive picture).

·         Some grants were used to commission services rather than simply providing support to organisations; there may be merit in distinguishing between the two

·         The BME community represented a significant proportion of the City’s population. There was concern that the support offered to this community, via the grants programme, was not proportionate.

·         While there was a proper focus on priority (geographical) areas, it should be recognised that there were some areas of great need within areas not considered to be a priority.

Recommendations

·         Annual grants inevitably led to constant uncertainty about whether or not there would be subsequent renewal (and therefore uncertainty for staff). More consideration should be given to grants over a longer term (eg 3 years) or ‘rolling’ renewal over 2 years.

·         OCVA was funded to provide support to groups and individuals, closer scrutiny of how those funds were deployed would be desirable to ensure that it was supporting  the needs of the wider community.and helping to overcome barriers faced by excluded groups.

·         There would be merit in arranging workshops in Community Centres and engaging with Parish Councillors to draw communities’ attention to the opportunity of applying for grants and give advice about how to do so.

·         The unit cost of a grant (ie grant divided by the number of beneficiaries) would be a helpful additional indicator of a grant’s efficacy.

·         The data were, principally, quantitative and the wording of future reports should be more nuanced to reflect that.  Some thought should be given to including qualitative data in future reports, looking at the impact of grants,  a subset of which could well be an equalities impact assessment.

·         Consideration should be given to altering the proportions of the total grant fund available to different  categories of grant with a view to increasing the proportion available to smaller groups

·         More feedback to groups and individuals who were unsuccessful in applying for grants would be helpful.