Purpose

To seek Cabinet Member approval for allocation of government funding for BAME forum

Decision

The Cabinet Member for Health
and Communities:

 

1)   
Approved the
award of £8,000 funding to Chesterfield Links CVS for a 12
month period from 11 March 2024 to provide insight and analysis of the
barriers of ethnic minority groups to accessing Substance Use and Recovery
Services and raise awareness of this important service provision.

 

2)   
Noted that the
grant funding is from the reprofiling of an underspend on the year 2 (2023/24)
Supplementary Substance Misuse and Treatment Grant as outlined in the report.

Reasons for the decision

Chesterfield Links CVS, Derbyshire
BME Forum can provide the support, engagement and
insight with ethnic minority groups through the development of their
infrastructure as outlined in the report.

 

Chesterfield Links CVS meet
the criteria for SSMTRG Funding to provide insight and engagement to increase
the numbers of individual ethnic minority groups in accessing substance misuse
services.

Alternative options considered

Preferred option – approve
reprofiling of the underspend from year two (2) of the SSMTRG funding and
provide £8,000 funding to Chesterfield Links CVS

 

Return the underspend. This
is not an acceptable alternative as it indicates to OHID that Derbyshire
requires a lower level of funding and disadvantages Derbyshire
residents. 

 

Consider allocating the
SSMTRG funding underspend in a different manner: this is not an ideal
alternative as the allocation of funding was agreed in collaboration with the
different service providers following identification of gaps in service
provision and meets the coordination and commissioning requirements that the
SSMTRG funding brings.