Purpose

To award grants to local cultural and sports
organisations for the delivery of activities for children and young
people (0-25) in accordance with the published prospectus for the
Kings Coronation Youth Fund.

Decision

To approve grants set out in Appendix 1,
subject to the conditions detailed in Appendix 2, at a total cost
of £429,537 to be met from developer contributions allocated
to the Kings Coronation Youth Fund.
 

Reasons for the decision

To support provision of cultural and sporting
activities for children and young people which contributes to the
Corporate Plan objective of Making H&F a Great Place to Live,
Work and Thrive.  Specifically, the
activities will deliver cultural programmes in support of the
Cultural Strategy, bringing together our world class culture,
creativity, and community arts, reflecting our diverse heritage,
and animating our high streets, parks and public
buildings.  The sporting activities will
support improvements in young people’s wellbeing, linked to
the Health & Wellbeing strategy. Successful applications will
deliver sessions for disabled children and target teenagers,
particularly young women, addressing the needs of groups who are
currently less physically active.

Alternative options considered

1.    
The Council does not deliver arts activities directly; the primary
mechanism is through funding to third parties. This scheme has been
developed in order to commission activities which deliver against
the agreed cultural strategy, using an open access and transparent
process which compares proposals against published
criteria. 
 
2.    
For sports and physical activity, the scheme supports local
providers and creates opportunities address the needs of groups who
are currently less physically active. It will provide paid
opportunities for shadow sports leaders (aged 18+) to work
alongside experienced professionals.  Criteria for the remaining round of sports projects
will reflect the outcome of further work on the Active Wellbeing
strategy and will enable some of the applicants who were ineligible
for the current round to reapply.
 
3.    
Officers have assessed applications and these assessments,
including the recommended awards and conditions of grant aid, have
been reviewed by a panel of senior officers from Children’s
Services, Culture and Economic Development.  Alternatives to the recommendations in this report
would be to award grants to different organisations, to award
different amounts or to attach different conditions or not to award
grants.  These options introduce risks
to the integrity, transparency and fairness of the process and
therefore are not recommended.