Agenda and minutes

To note the attendance at this meeting of any duly appointed Reserve Members.

Reserve Members may attend meetings:-

(i)                 to take the place of an ordinary Member for whom they are a reserve;

(ii)               where the ordinary Member will be absent for the whole of the meeting; and

(iii)             the meeting notes at the start of the meeting at the item ‘Reserves’ that the Reserve Member is or will be attending as a reserve;

(iv)              if a Reserve Member whose intention to attend has been noted arrives after the commencement of the meeting, then that Reserve Member can only act as a Member from the start of the next item of business on the agenda after his/her arrival.

RESOLVED:  To note the attendance at this meeting of the following duly appointed Reserve Members:-

To receive declarations of personal or prejudicial interests, arising from business to be transacted at this meeting, from:

(a)               all Members of the Committee, Sub Committee, Panel or Forum;

(b)               all other Members present in any part of the room or chamber.

RESOLVED:  That

(a)               the following personal interests were declared and that all Members remained in the room during the discussion and voting:

Item 4: Grant Funding 2011/12

Councillor Nana Asante -

·                    Harrow MENCAP

·                    Harrow Association of Voluntary Services (HAVS)

·                    Age Concern

·                    Harrow in Europe

·                    Voluntary and Community Sector Forum

·                    Harrow Rethink

·                    Flash Musicals

Councillor Joyce Nickolay -

·                    Harrow in Europe

Councillor Susan Anderson -

·                    Community link up

·                    St. Luke’s Hospice

·                    Harrow Law Centre

·                    Harrow Mencap

·                    Harrow Association of Disabled People

·                    Harrow Healthy Living Centre

·                    Harrow Public Transport Users Association

·                    Kenton Adventure Park

·                    Rethink

Councillor Krishna James -

·                    Mind

·                    Harrow Carers

·                    8th Kenton Scout Group

·                    Harrow Association of Disabled People

·                    Harrow Healthy Living Centre

·                    Rethink

Councillor Chris Mote -

·                    Harrow in Europe

Councillor Vina Mithani -

·                    Navnat Yuva Vadil Mandal

Councillor Nizam Ismail -

·                    Harrow Muslim Council

(b)               The following prejudicial interests were declared and Councillors would leave the room should the relevant organisation be discussed:

Item 4: Grant Funding 2011/12

Councillor Joyce Nickolay -

·                    Harrow Association of Voluntary Services

·                    Welldon Activity Group

·                    Bentley Priory Nature Reserve Management Committee

Councillor Susan Anderson -

·                    WelldonActivity Group

Councillor Chris Mote -

·                    St. Luke’s Hospice

To receive deputations (if any) under the provisions of Executive Procedure Rule 50 (Part 4D of the Constitution).

[Note:  The Panel’s policy (Minute 60:  28.07.03) in principle is not to receive deputations relating to individual grant applications].

[Note:  The Panel's policy (Minute 13: 06.07.06) is to receive deputations annually at its November meeting].

RESOLVED:  To note that no deputations were received.

Report of the Corporate Director Community and Environment.

The Panel received a report which set out grant funding recommendations for 2011/12.  The report requested that Members award funding from the Main Grants Programme to Voluntary and Community Sector organisations to support the delivery of services.

The Divisional Director of Community and Cultural Services informed Members that the Council had received a record number of applications for grant funding and that the total sum requested exceeded the total funds available.  The total amount of funding available for distribution from the Main Grants Programme in 2011/12 was £669,360. Of this, £62,649 would be set aside to fund the one month grant extension payments approved by Cabinet on 13 January 2011.  It was also recommended that consideration be given to a further 5% of the available budget being set aside to fund successful appeals, with an additional £20,781 be ring-fenced to fund the interim delivery and long-term development of support services to the Voluntary and Community Sector to replace those previously provided by the Harrow Association of Voluntary Services.  With these deductions made, the total sum available for allocation was £576,375.

The Divisional Director informed the Panel that the report included two possible options for the allocation of grant funding.  The first option was to approve grants for applications that had achieved an assessment score of 95% and above, and award these organisations 85% of the grant requested.  This would allow 31 applications to be funded within the available budget.  Applications scoring below 95% would be placed on a reserve list and awarded funds if they became available.  This was the officers’ recommended option.

Option 2 was to lower the assessment threshold and this would make more organisations eligible for grant funding, although this would mean that each organisation would receive a lower percentage of the grant requested, depending on the percentage threshold used.

The Divisional Director informed Members that a number of improvements had been made to the grant application and assessment process in order to make it more transparent, fair and reduce the possibility of errors.  Changes included:

·                    establishing a cross corporate, officer chaired assessment panels to assess applications, with rigorous record keeping to provide a clear and transparent audit trail for decision-making;

·                    the removal of questions on the scoring sheet used by assessment panels that referred to duplication and track record, as questions about these were not asked on the application form;

·                    the introduction of a word limit on sections of the application form;

·                    the introduction of an automatic calculating sheet on the budget page of the application form that only allowed information to be provided for one year;

·                    the direct transfer of information from the application form to the summary reports to ensure that information was not misrepresented or omitted;

·                    the introduction of a number of quality checks throughout the process to ensure that mistakes had not been made during the scoring and assessment process.

The Divisional Director informed the Panel that the quality checks had highlighted one error in that the Welldon Activity Group had been  ...  view the full minutes text for item 49.