Decision

RESOLVED:

Cabinet is recommended to :-

1. 1.  Agree the timetable for the Hackney Voluntary and Community Sector Open Grants Programme for 2024/25
2. 2.  Agree that the following funding streams can be launched through the programme:

·  Project Grants for up to £20,000 for one or two years from April 2024.

·  Community Chest grants for up to £1,000 for one year for short term projects or one-off activities from April 2024 (with four grant rounds spread throughout the year)

·  Children and Young people activity based grants of up to £20,000 over one year totalling £225,000 from April 2024.

1. 3.  Agree the second year of funding of advice grants  as set out in Appendix  one, totalling £922,500.
2. 4.  Note that £77,826 remains set aside to meet some of the identified gaps in provision and  provide additional capacity to the advice system.
3. 5.  Agree one year funding for Specialist grants totalling £719,066 as set out in Appendix One.
4. 6.  Agree in regards to Community Infrastructure grants to award a  third year of funding (of a total of three) for 20 Community Infrastructure organisations at £19,800 each per annum  and a second year of funding ( of a total of two) for four community infrastructure organisations at £19,800 each.
5. 7.  Note the carry over of £25,000 development funding for Community Infrastructure that can be deployed to support development and capacity building to enable gaps in geography or community to be addressed.
6. 8.  To continue to set aside £200,000 of the grant programme budget provision for financial intervention for organisations at risk of closure and delegate authority to approve grants to the Head of Policy and Strategic Delivery in consultation with the Portfolio Holder for Health, adult social care, voluntary sector and leisure.
7. 9.  Agree to use £65,000 of the grant program reserves  to increase  organisational capacity in order to undertake a council wide review  of our investment in the VCS
8. 10.Agree to contribute to the London borough’s grant scheme administered by London Councils 2024/25 and note that the contribution will be in the region of £208,093
9. 11.To delegate authority to approve the Project Grants 2024/25 including Community Chest, Physical Activity and Children and Young People’s Grants, as well as the deployment of resources to address and/or meet any gaps and capacity in Advice Services or Community Infrastructure grants, to the Head of Policy and Strategic Delivery in consultation with the Portfolio Holder for Health, adult social care, voluntary sector and leisure, and the Portfolio Holder for education, young people and children’s social care

REASONS FOR DECISION

Cabinet is asked to agree the funding criteria, timetable and details of the Hackney Voluntary and Community Sector Grants programme for 2024/25  as a key decision of the Council as it affects two or more wards and is related to Council spend. The indicative timetable is set out below:

Project Grants*

Applications open

February 2024

Applications close

March 2024

Delegated authority decisions

May 2024

Recommendations to Cabinet

N/A

*Please note that 3 further rounds of Community Chest grants will take place later in the year.

VCS Grants Programme for 2024/25 including Public Health and Children and Young people grants

Grant Programme

Core

Budget

Other funding*

Total

Project Grants (including general, Community Chest, Children and Young People* and Physical Activity**)

£216,000

£207,500

£423,500

Advice Services (total budget including Public Health contribution*** and funding to fill gaps thorough development work)

£1,000,326

£120,000

£1,120,326

Community Infrastructure

£500,200

£0.00

£500,200

Specialist Grants

£719,066

£0.00

£719,066

Financial Intervention Support Grants

£200,000

£0.00

£200,000

Total Grants Programme

£2,635,592

£327,500

£2,963,092

*£200,000 for the Children & Young People’s Fund is from Young Hackney’s budget.

**7,500 from the Public Health Physical Activity budget for the

***£120,000 contribution from the Public Health budget

Reviewing how we invest in the VCS

The review of the grants programme has enabled further exploration and  opportunities to build in equality focussed and anti-racist approaches to the delivery of the investment. For example, assessor training now involves a section on intersectionality and institutional racism. We have also placed more emphasis on supporting groups who are led by those with lived experience, and have used information on organisational leadership and beneficiary groups to make decisions in a more targeted way. We will continue to build upon this for the 2024/25 programme.

Given the complexity of the challenges we are seeking to address in the community and public sector, there are much more effective and impactful ways to invest in the VCS than the traditional approaches to commissioning through grant making or procurement. Traditional approaches are transactional and arms length and assume complex challenges can be addressed through short term activity, focussing on a narrow set of issues through simple projects and measurable outputs. It also feeds into a wider set of behaviours and attitudes that maintain a “parent child” relationship between the public sector and the VCS.

Funders have been working on more effective models for a number of years, and this very much aligns with the thinking outlined about new approaches to public service. The grants programme has been changed to take account of our experience of working with the sector during the pandemic, the knowledge we have gained from working with Advice providers and Community Infrastructure partners, and the change and transformation we are trying to achieve as a Council in how we work with communities. The review has provided an opportunity to reflect on the ‘how’ and not just ‘what’ we fund

This report proposes the use of £65,000 from the VCS grants program reserves in order to increase capacity from March to June 2024  to undertake a full review of cross Council investment in the VCS.  This will enable us to understand in quite granular detail what is procured and grant funded across the council and the intended outcomes from this investment.  Learning from the council's work on anti-racism and other areas such as the Public Health Match projects, as well as established thinking about what approaches and service design are needed in the reform of the public sector, supported by the RSA, New Local and the LGA, will enable us to begin to redesign investment in the VCS that works better for our residents.  This thinking places greater value on addressing system failures, working across silos and taking a more strength based and long-term view than the current system which places greater value upon ease of measurement and accountability.

Community Infrastructure Grants

In 2023/24 we funded 24 Community Infrastructure organisations.These are locality or community based organisations that work preventatively, working with communities at grassroots level to co-design services, build local systems of support and help the Council to improve reach. During the pandemic we were able to witness the expertise and reach that these organisations have in their communities along with the person-centred ways of working they adopt to meet the presenting need and work with complexity. This was seen in place-based organisations but also those working with particular communities e.g black led organisations. This range of community infrastructure utilised its strengths and assets, flexing and adapting to the needs of individuals and communities. At the same time they were promoting social inclusion, building relationships with people and creating new connections. Community infrastructure proved to be a crucial resource during the pandemic and yet for many years there has been little or no direct investment in this.

This activity is key to a preventative agenda that seeks to build upon the assets within communities, as well as helping to respond to the Cost of Living crisis. Although our commitment to fund is over three years in the first year our focus has been to collaborate with each organisation to explore and identify,

·  What they need to measure in order to reflect on their practice and improve outcomes for residents through their activity and across the system

·  More systemic collaborative ways of working and what challenges/benefits does this bring

·  The sharing of learning and influencing practice.

The Community Infrastructure organisations have been partnered with 24 Relational Leads. These are all volunteer officers from across the Council committed to developing the programme further, developing ways of helping Council services to work more meaningfully and effectively with community partners, and strengthening our way of working on early help and prevention across the lifecourse. The work of the Relational Leads is supported and coordinated by the System Convenor roles within the Policy and Strategic Delivery Team.

Project Grants

As already set out, we intend to broadly continue with our existing programme objectives and equality aims, which guide applicants on the outcomes we are seeking to achieve from the grants programme, but with a renewed focus on specific beneficiary groups who are being particularly affected by the cost of living crisis. Whilst we are reprioritisng our investment to protect and develop community infrastructure we will continue to invest part of the programme in short-term project based activity.

We will continue to run our open programme as our Project Grants rather than Main and Small Grants from previous years. The Project Grants strand will encompass generic Project Grants, Children and Young People’s Grants (discussed further in 4.4), and Community Chest Physical Activity grants. Responding to feedback from applicants last year it is intended to offer two year grants where possible for the Project Grants in 2024/25 to ensure alignment and consistency between the funding streams.

Grant funding Children and Young People’s activity

Building on the last 2 years this grants scheme specifically for children and young people will use a budget that in previous years had been deployed for one-off commissioning of youth activity by the Children and Families Service. The funding will be prioritised for the identified health and wellbeing needs of young people within the eight Primary Care Networks of the Integrated Care Partnership. However as with all grants in the programme the ability to ensure geographical spread across the borough will be dependent upon the spread of applications received.

The grants will be for one year youth work projects. Applicants will be asked to  focus on youth work methodology and may include specialist providers for a variety of activities including sport, drama and film. As with the wider grants programme the activities for children and young people should speak to anti racist and anti oppressive practices so that provision is inclusive and seeks to promote equality. Grant funding rather than commissioning should enable more collaborative working both with the Council and between VCS organisations that are funded. This in turn should ensure additionality from the resources being used.

Advice grants

Our advice partners continue to be central to the vital work of the VCS in supporting residents through the CoLC. Ongoing work with organisations has increased the levels of collaboration and partnership within the advice system but also other VCS organisations responding to the material impacts of poverty in Hackney. Last year we conducted an open application process to ensure that we have a network of advice partners that can respond to the various needs of the communities of Hackney.

The process resulted in funding to nineteen advice partners outlined in Appendix 2. Of these advice partners one was new to receiving a social welfare advice grant. To determine the level of funding to award the panel, focused on funding an advice system for Hackney, considered shortlisted advice partners’ capacity, specialism and potential increases demand for support from particular Black and Global Majority communities or those affected by legislative changes (e.g. No Recourse to Public Funds, Employment Rights). 

Following completion of the assessment process it was identified that although officers have recommended funding for an extensive advice offer there is a noticeable gap in provision in the north of Hackney. Some work has been undertaken to remedy this by embedding an advice worker in a health setting in the north of the borough in partnership with the Together Better  initiative  which includes immigration advice. Recognising the likelihood that serving specific cultural and religious residents/ communities in this area of the borough will not readily travel to funded provisions located elsewhere or due to unfamiliarity with particular advice partners, officers propose to continue to retain some funding from the advice budget specifically to explore possible options with organisations established in that locality.

Specialist Grants

Following the full review of Specialist Grants completed in 2017, another review was initiated last year in order to identify where investment should be focused in the future. A local Community Anchor organisation assisted the Council in this review. This not only ensured external challenge but drew upon the organisation’s understanding of the local VCS as well as their learning from the different perspectives from working directly with communities, the providers of services and the investors in communities. The findings will help inform proposals in 2024/25 on the implementation of the grants review.

As we continue through the 2024/25 Grants Programme to focus on CoLC, Specialist Grants are also being considered in this context. Through the relational ways that the Council’s Grants Team work with partners they will be exploring on a case-by-case basis how each organisation is  responding to the CoLC. These organisations have been funded at the current rate for a number of years, which effectively means that their grant has decreased in value quite significantly.  Last year given the rising costs for VCS organisations a 10% inflationary uplift  was applied.

DETAILS OF ALTERNATIVE OPTIONS CONSIDERED AND REJECTED

Given the budgetary pressures facing the Council the future of the VCS Grants Programme is regularly reviewed. However consideration has been given to the reductions in public spending through welfare cuts and reduced grants to local government which can lead to increased demands upon the VCS. The unique position of the VCS to respond to the needs of the most vulnerable and disadvantaged residents as well as its ability to deliver added value e.g. through inward investment and volunteering necessitates a grant programme that ensures that the sector can continue to thrive and build resilience to mitigate the impacts of the pandemic and in the face of further budget reductions.

Whilst procurement resources the VCS, the investment through the Council’s grants programme helps to maintain a thriving third sector and a wide range of suppliers. Funding the sector through grants ensures that it can identify new needs and new ideas and innovate and test new solutions. It enables added value activity that complements direct or procured service delivery and can fund open universal activity. The sector is also able to use grant funding to respond to specific challenges in regards to community cohesion by providing grassroots community based activity that builds cohesion and community action and the support that is needed by our most disadvantaged and vulnerable residents.