Agenda item

The Board considered a Call-In following the Executive’s decision of 13 April 2004 to agree proposals on how the Council’s corporate grants programme will be utilised to support local voluntary and community sector organisations in 2004/2005.  One decision was that, in view of the significant reduction in overall budget, no single organisation will receive a grant above £150,000.  The Call-In concerned the Citizen’s Advice Bureau (CAB), which last year received a grant of £176,000.  The Call-In Members were concerned that if this amount was reduced to £150,000, it would have a very serious detrimental affect on the quality of the service that the organisation provides to some of the most vulnerable residents of the Borough.

Councillor Cook declared an interest in as much as the Council had appointed him to sit on the CAB Management Board which is, as an organisation, affected by the Executive’s decision.  He then made the following points:

·  The cut represents a 17% reduction on last year’s funding but is 25% less than the CAB requested.  This is not clear from the Executive report as the amounts requested by organisations were not included.

·  Last year the CAB received a grant that represented 40.9% of their total expenditure, the rest of the money they raised from outside bodies by running projects.  The effect of a reduction in funding by the Council will therefore be amplified by the loss of match funding.

·  Dealing with the huge numbers of requests for advice requires tremendous effort on the part of the staff, most of whom are volunteers, but paid, trained advisors are needed to train the volunteers.  If the funding is cut the CAB will not be able to employ these people.

Councillor Justice commented on the fact that the organisation had been given no notice of the impending cut in their funding.  Had they known about it in advance they would have been able to take it into account

Responding on behalf of the Executive, Councillor Fairbrass said the total budget was agreed, without dissent, by all Members of the Council  He commented that cuts are being made elsewhere in the Council and the total budget to voluntary organisations is well over £1m.

Referring to a conversation he had had with the Chair of the CAB prior to the hearing, Councillor Wade confirmed that he was on holiday when the decision was made by the Executive.  However, he emphasised that, had he been present at the meeting, he would not have voted against that particular issue.

Councillor Geddes emphasised the value that the Council placed on the work of the CAB but the grants decision had to be seen in the context of a difficult budget.  He outlined the way the budget had been put together this year, highlighting the need to limit the Council Tax as much as possible and meet FSS levels of spending for Social Services and Education.  He pointed out that the percentage of the corporate grant budget awarded to the CAB has in fact gone up, 24% last year and it now gets 28%.  It is still by far the largest grant the Council gives.

Board Members raised a number of points relating to the report submitted to the Executive and it was confirmed that the Council allows the CAB use of its premises rent free, in addition to the grant.

All parties withdrew at 6.30 pm for the Board to deliberate and reconvened at 6.50 pm for the Board’s decision.

After weighing up all the evidence the Board agreed unanimously that the Executive’s decision should stand.

The community’s expectations are ever increasing and, whilst the Board sympathised with groups who have had their grants frozen or cut, they were aware of their responsibility as a Council towards their other services, including their statutory obligations.  The Board was satisfied that the Executive took this into account when making their decision and did not take their decision lightly.

The budget was put to the Assembly and agreed unanimously.  The report tackled the implications of the budget and the Board were satisfied that the Executive’s methodology was reasonable.

The Board are recommending to their Budgets Scrutiny Panel that in future any similar reports should contain details of previous years’ allocations and bids.