Agenda item

To receive the final report of the Grant Aid Task and Finish Panel.

The Chairman of the Grant Aid Review Task and Finish Panel, Councillor Caroline Pond introduced their final report. The Panel acknowledged the £11,500 saving made from the Grant Aid Budget for 2015/16 in respect of the one–off major grants and considered whether any further reductions could be made to the overall Grant Aid funding programme. It also looked at the various criteria for the distribution of funding; the monitoring and evaluation for each grant awarded and the Service Level Agreements applied.

More detailed consideration was given to the higher level funding agreements, in respect of Voluntary Action Epping Forest and the Citizen’s Advice Bureau, who provided presentations to the Panel on their work. In addition, visits were made by the Panel members, to various organisations in receipt of grant funding.

Early in the review process the Panel came to the conclusion that it would be easier and more logical to break down the review into two parts, namely one focussing on the major grants and associated policy and procedure and the other relating to the Service Level Agreements with voluntary groups active in the District, including the CAB and Voluntary Action Epping Forest, which had been carried out in 2015/16.  This report related to the second part of the review. 

Within Part 1 of the Grant Aid Review, the Panel recognised the vital role that the voluntary and community sector brought to local community well-being in the Epping Forest District.  However, it also acknowledged the need for a more proactive approach to monitoring and evaluating the effectiveness of grants awarded, and particularly the higher level grants.

The Committee reviewed the recommendations made by the Panel. Councillor Mohindra noted that recommendation 5 said that a rigorous process of monitoring was adopted for the higher Grant Awards. What did this mean. Councillor Pond said that officers should look at the various grants every year. Councillor Waller noted that there was always room for improvement in monitoring and for the use of SMART objectives.

Councillor Keska asked if the performance management benchmarking for the VAEF and the Epping Forest CAB would be for the whole district and would that mean they would be returning to Ongar. Councillor Pond said that they would restore it to one day a week.  Councillor Waller noted that services tended to be directed to the more populated parts of the district. The CAB should be involved in the more out reaching parts of the district as they also had needs.

RESOLVED:

(1)          That the current level of Grant Aid funding be maintained;

(2)          That, from 1 April 2016, funding of less than £5,000 per annum for three years be provided for Voluntary Groups without the need for a formal Service Level Agreement, but, subject to the receipt of an Annual Report from each Group outlining the benefit to the District from the funding;

(3)           That the revised Service Level Agreement as agreed by the Panel, be adopted by the Council;

(4)          That the District Council maintain provision for longer term funding to Voluntary Action Epping Forest and Epping Forest Citizens Advice Bureau from 2016/17 onwards, based on performance management benchmarking closely monitored on an annual basis;

(5)          That a more rigorous process of monitoring be adopted for  the higher Grant Awards currently in operation for Voluntary Action Epping Forest and Citizen’s Advice Bureau.