Issue - meetings

Report of Cabinet Member for Finance and Assets, Councillor Alisha Lewis

Objective : To consider the policy prior to Cabinet consideration.

Claire Hughes, Director of Governance and Customer Service.

The Director of Governance and Customer Service introduced the Grants Policy and made the following points:

-       As a Council we are proud of our community grants funding.

-       We are trusted with public funds and need to make sure that we can account for its spending

-       The policy makes sure that we will have a robust governance structure in place.

-       There will be a grant tool kit which will show at an operational level what needs to be done and when, providing examples and templates.

-       Moving forward there will be a bigger piece of work that looks at what we do with grants in the future.

-       In the future there will be a more panel based decision group to look at how the money is distributed.

-       The policy will be going to Cabinet for approval at the end of November.

Councillor Chelin had no further questions to add other than the published questions that were submitted prior to the meeting.

The responses to Member questions were as follows:

-       There was clarification that some grants are from the Councils resources.

-       The Council has a community grant pot of £30,000, plus annual grants that are allocated. 

-       There is a potential for the Council to be exposed to risk and the policy is being bought in to provide relevant protections.

-       This policy is being bought in with consultation from internal audit and the counter fraud team.

-       It was confirmed that if a volunteer group has not got a bank account and they are given a grant the Council could potentially hold the money for them.

-       The Council is oversubscribed with people applying for its community pride grants.

-       There are not independent members of the public on the panel but we try to represent everyone, for example some from the voluntary sector is often asked to assist.

-       The point was made that we don’t want grants to be seen as method to long term sustainability.

The Chair concluded the item stating that there was no decision to be made and encouraging Members to feedback any suggestions.