Issue - items at meetings - Grant Review and Member Locality Budget Review

Report No: CAB/SE/15/028

Cabinet Member: Sara Mildmay-White Lead Officer: Davina Howes

(a) New approach to grant funding arrangements and review of the Locality Budget Scheme

(a) New approach to grant funding arrangements and review of Locality Budget Scheme

RESOLVED:

That:

(1) the revised approach to grant funding from 2015/2016 including the establishment of a Community Chest, as set out in Section 1.3 of Report No: GWP/SE/15/002, be approved;

(2) (a) the Head of Families and Communities, in consultation with the Portfolio Holder with the responsibility for Grants, be given delegated powers to make awards from the Community Chest funding to the value of £10,000, as set out in paragraph 1.4.4 of Report No: GWP/SE/15/002;

(b) subject to (2)(a) above, the Grant Working Party firstly be consulted by email on grants proposed to be awarded under this delegation using a similar procedure to that applied under the existing Rural Initiatives Grant Scheme;

(3) the existing St Edmundsbury Grant Policy be revoked and from April 2015 be replaced with the new criteria, as outlined in Appendix A to Report No: GWP/SE/15/002;

(4) the success of the Locality Budget Scheme to date be noted and subject to the amendment below, revisions to the scheme to be implemented for 2015/2016, be approved:

the sentence, ‘For the purposes of this scheme, a rural parish council is considered to be a parish with a population of 1,000 or fewer according to the latest mid year estimate figures’, be deleted from paragraph 1.7 of Appendix B to Report No: GWP/SE/15/002; and

(5) any Locality Budget underspend for 2014/2015 with the exception of the £500 per Councillor carry-forward, be approved and retained within the Locality Budget fund for allocation in future years, as outlined in Section 3.2 of Report No: GWP/SE/15/002.

The Cabinet considered Report No: CAB/SE/15/028 (previously circulated)which presented the recommendations of the Grant Working Party.

Councillor Mrs Mildmay-White, Portfolio Holder for Health and Communities drew relevant issues to the attention of the Cabinet, including that on 13 March 2015, the Grant Working Party considered the ‘New approach to grant funding arrangements and review of the Locality Budget Scheme’ as a substantive item of business.

The Working Party had considered proposed changes for streamlining the grant funding arrangements for 2015/2016 onwards, including the establishment of a Community Chest fund, and the revisions to the Members’ Locality Budget Scheme following a review of the scheme piloted in 2014/2015. Whilst it had recommended amendments to Recommendations (2) and (4) contained in Report No: GWP/SE/15/002, the Working Party had accepted the new approach to grant funding and supported the revisions to the Locality Budget Scheme.

The Cabinet considered the amendments made by the Grant Working Party, the reasons for which were provided in the report and reiterated by Councillor Mrs Mildmay-White, and these were found to be acceptable. All other recommendations were supported.