Issue - meetings

Consider report by Service Director Customer and Communities.  (Copy attached.)

With reference to paragraph 1 of the Minute of 28 February 2019, there had been circulated copies of a report by the Service Director Customer and Communities on the proposed interim allocation and governance arrangements for the Community Fund for Area Partnerships and a proposed review and consultation on the way forward.  The report explained that as part of the Fit for 2024 proposals it had been agreed to consolidate a number of existing Council funds into a single Scottish Borders Council Community Fund to be devolved to the five Area Partnerships from 1 April 2019.  The total Community Fund available for 2019/20 was £1,166,433.  Community Councils’ funding would continue to be allocated at the same level for 2019/20 to allow a review of these grants to take place.  Given the short time scale in introducing the Community Fund, it was now proposed that, in order to give financial security and continuity to Village Halls and Local Festivals in the coming year, that, as with grants to Community Councils, these grants were also allocated in 2019/20 on the same basis and with the same criteria as in 2018/19.  The additional Fit for 2024 funding of £445,000 to the Community Fund agreed as part of the budget was allocated to Area Partnerships based on a per head of population.  This was the same allocation basis for the £288,670 which was the remaining balance of available funds after deduction of the funding for the Community Action Team (CAT) and financial plan savings.  This left a balance of funding in the Community Fund of £234,900 from the residual Community Grant Scheme and Quality of Life Funding for devolvement to Area Partnerships for 2019/20.  A number of options were given in the Appendices to the report on methodology for the allocation of this to Area Partnerships, including current allocation, per head of population and by Scottish Index Multiple Deprivation (SIMD) or a combination of these methods.  It was proposed that this funding was allocated to each Area Partnership on the basis of: Community Grant Scheme – current allocation (population base) less £35k for Borders Wide applications; and Quality of Life – current allocation basis i.e. £20k per Area Partnership. In order to ensure there was no gap in the provision of grants to communities and local organisations, it was suggested that interim arrangements were put in place for Area Partnerships disbursing their Community Fund to operate from 1 April 2019.  It was therefore proposed that the current criteria for applications to the existing Community Grant Scheme was used for community groups to apply for funding and a new application form was made available.  While the limit on the current Community Grant was £5k it was proposed to extend this to £10k, or in exceptional cases up to £30k.  The applications meeting the required criteria for Community Fund money would be presented to Area Partnerships for decision, with no decision making devolved to officers.  At the moment there would be no change in membership of  ...  view the full minutes text for item 5