To review the criteria and operation of the Community Grants Scheme and approve the new Community Grants Information Guide.

That the new Community Grants Information Guide be APPROVED.  

34.1           The report of the Finance and Asset Management Group Manager, circulated at Pages No. 53-68, suggested an amended grant criteria that reflected the financing changes to the grant scheme and dealt with a number of issues that had been encountered under the current criteria. Members were asked to approve the new Community Grants Information Guide as attached to the report at Appendix B.

34.2           The Finance and Asset Management Group Manager explained that the current Grants Working Group had been set up in 2009 to offer a more systematic approach to the approval of grants. Over the last six years 55 grants totalling £1.38million had been approved. However, due to the use of capital reserves to fund the grants scheme all of the grants awarded were to support projects of a physical nature with an average grant level of around £25,000. The Council had had a heavy capital programme in recent years which had led to a substantial reduction in the capital reserves available and, for this reason, the Council had agreed to refinance the grants scheme from New Homes Bonus which was a revenue stream. This would give more flexibility to the grants awarded if the Scheme itself was extended to also allow applications for items which were not purely capital in nature. In addition, the Council had now employed a Funding Officer with the aim of supporting organisations across the Borough in finding and applying for grants from regional, national and European sources which would help to reduce the burden on the Council to fund large grants.

34.3           Members were advised that the direction of travel that the Council wished to see for its grants programme was for there to be less direct financial dependence on it and an increased enabling function which aimed to draw external funds into the area. This direction therefore needed to be reflected in the new criteria. The current criteria was attached to the report at Appendix A whilst the proposed new criteria, in the form of a Community Grants Information and Guidelines Document, was attached at Appendix B. The main amendments to the capital grants and the new detail of the revenue grants included: a new maximum for capital grant awards from £70,000 to £30,000 or 50% of project costs; the minimum lease period for a building type application being amended to 10 years; new revenue grants limited to £3,000 and 80% of project costs; revenue grants to be awarded on a yes/no basis with capital grants continuing to be awarded against a scoring matrix based on the Council’s priorities; revenue grants to be paid as a one-off advance with capital grants being paid in arrears based on expenditure; further clarification on the types of grant the Council would and would not support as well as the types of organisation that could apply; successful applicants could not reapply for further grants until two years had passed between the completion of the original project and submission of another application; and there being a discretion to support applications in excess of the scheme limits resting with the Executive Committee if required.

34.4           The Finance and Asset Management Group Manager explained that the current Grants Working Group had considered the new information and guidelines document and had only suggested a few minor amendments which had been incorporated into the document. He indicated that he was aware of some minor wording changes required to make it clear that the Grants Working Group would not actually make the decision on any applications itself but that, in line with the current procedure, the award of the grant would be delegated to the appropriate Officer as required in Law.

34.5           During the discussion which ensued, a Member expressed concern at the maximum grant limits that were proposed. He was concerned that, as costs kept rising, it was likely that the grants offered by the Council would be too small. In response, the Finance and Asset Management Group Manager advised that this was a difficult issue but it needed to be borne in mind that there was only limited grant funding available and, therefore, if a higher grant limit was in place there would be less applications that could be considered. The Council just could not afford to keep being the main contributor to schemes across the Borough and this was the reason that a cap was being suggested and that the Funding Officer had been employed. If there were exceptional circumstances then there was always the Executive Committee’s discretion should it be necessary. Another Member indicated that she fully appreciated the Council’s grants scheme and understood the need for applicants to look for funding elsewhere as well. She also expressed the view that the addition of a revenue grants scheme was an excellent one which she fully supported. In response to a query regarding the use of the new criteria, the Finance and Asset Management Group Manager explained that, in order to allow a transition period, it was proposed that the application forms already sent to applicants were honoured and judged under the current criteria. Applications issued after the call-in period had expired for the Executive Committee would be considered under the new criteria. It was understood that initially this would lead to a mixture of applications but this would be managed by Officers and the Member Working Group. In order to make this issue less complicated a moratorium on issuing application forms had been in place from the middle of August.

34.6           Generally Members were pleased with the proposed new information and guidelines document. They understood that there was a need to encourage organisations to seek funding in other places rather than automatically asking the Borough Council and they thought that the changes suggested would help this. They were also pleased at the introduction of the revenue grants part of the scheme which it was felt would be extremely helpful to organisations across the Borough. A County Council Member also reminded Members that each County Councillor had a funding pot of £40,000 for schemes within their communities as part of the ‘active together funding’ and he encouraged residents to use their County Councillors as a source of funding if appropriate.

34.7           Accordingly, it was