8 Capital community grants
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To consider the report of the head of
corporate strategy.
Additional documents:
Minutes:
The
committee considered the head of corporate strategy’s report
on a new capital community grants scheme. The committee was asked for its views on the new
scheme ahead of Cabinet considering the same report on 1
June.
Before
it did so, the committee heard a question from Councillor Dudley Hoddinott. He asked how the cost of capital projects would be
broken down when the largest component was often labour? The officers
reported that the whole capital cost of a project, including
labour, would be considered as capital expenditure when determining
each application.
The
committee noted that this was a new scheme, offering grants to
constituted community groups for capital schemes. The scheme did not offer grants to cover running
costs, i.e. revenue costs. However, the
committee noted that a small budget would be available for some
revenue grants through a separate scheme, the details of which had
yet to be determined.
The
committee made the following suggestions:
- The
council should provide examples of capital projects that might be
successful under the new scheme as the public might not be aware of
the difference between capital and revenue expenditure in local
government terms
- The
council should inform applicants that there would be a separate
revenue grants scheme at a later date
- Applications should be allowed from charitable bodies and
community interest companies
- Area
committees should consider the grant applications. (One councillor suggested an alternative to the
area committees distributing grants funds, believing that
councillors should each have an amount to spend on projects in
their ward as they thought fit.
However, this suggestion did not receive the committee’s
support, as this would result in each councillor having a very
small budget. The committee considered
that it would be better to pool resources and determine grants
collectively through area committees.)
- Area
committees could initiate their own schemes. The committee considered that these schemes must
be subject to a formal agreement for ownership, liability and
future maintenance, for example, perhaps through the formal
involvement of a third party
- The scheme
eligibility criteria needed clarification on the difference between
items such as repairs, maintenance, and professional fees, which
were not normally eligible for capital grants, and refurbishment,
which might be
- Each
applicant should always obtain support of their parish or town
council, and ideally an appropriate financial
contribution
- Where
an area committee was in support of a scheme that had not met all
of the criteria (e.g. had yet to obtain planning permission or
achieve parish/town council support), the committee should delegate
approval of a grant, subject to the criteria/conditions being
met. Authority should be delegated to
the strategic director/head of service, following consultation with
the relevant area committee chairman
- The
scheme eligibility criteria should be amended to read
‘applications will normally be considered if
organisations/projects meet the following eligibility
criteria…’
- The
committee strongly preferred budget allocation option 2: funds to
be allocated to area committees on a per councillor basis (10
votes), over option 3 (2 votes) and option 1 (no votes)
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