Agenda item

a.            Salisbury City Community Area Partnership (SCCAP) Core Funding 2010/11

Decision

The Salisbury Area Board awarded the second tranche of core funding to Salisbury Community Area Partnership (SCCAP); the sum of £7,825.

Reason – To support the Partnership and to allow its work to continue.

b.            Motion received from Councillor Paul Sample

The Chairman introduced the item, commenting that concerns had been expressed regarding the extensive questioning of grant applicants at previous meetings of the Area Board.  Although the Board was required to be thorough when determining the spend of public money, there was concern that the nature of the public questioning could be off-putting to some applicants.

In order to address this, the Chairman had visited other Area Boards and had identified the method used at the Amesbury Area Board, where a small informal panel reviewed the applications in advance of the meeting and sought clarification, allowing the Area Board to make the final decision based on all the required information and avoiding the public questioning of applicants.  The Chairman had proposed a similar process for the Salisbury Area Board.

Councillor Paul Sample moved the motion as set out in the agenda papers adding that the transparency of decision-making was important if the Area Board was to maintain the trust of the public.  Councillor Sample considered that the move to take decisions on grants in public was a significant improvement on the former Salisbury District Council arrangements, whereby grants were determined by a panel meeting in private.  It was important that the public decision-making should continue, although the process required some form of review to mitigate the cross-examination of some applicants in public meetings.

Debrah Biggs reported that the SCCAP Steering Group had considered and supported the motion, having agreed that the Area Board should remain transparent.  Debrah added that SCCAP would welcome the opportunity to become more involved in terms of decision making at the Area Board, for example commenting on how well grant applications met the criteria of the community plan, once this was in place.

It was noted that only the elected Councillors on the Area Board could vote on decisions, although it would be appropriate for partner organisations to be consulted on grant applications in advance, as they were currently able to express support for or opposition to a grant application at the meeting if they so wished.

The Chairman invited the Area Board Councillors to give their views. The Board supported the motion, with Councillors emphasising the importance of robust evaluation of application and the need to maintain an open and honest decision-making procedure.  It was also noted that the Salisbury Area Board sought the view of the public at its meetings; not all Area Boards did this.

Decision

In order to be transparent and command public confidence, this Area Board believes that applications for grants made by local organisations to Salisbury Area Board should be discussed in public at meetings of the Salisbury Area Board.  For these reasons it does not believe the establishment of a Grants Panel, which meets in private between Boards to look at the grant applications and make recommendations to the Board, should be pursued.

Following the above decision, the Chairman proposed that the process for evaluating grant application prior to Area Board meetings be revised to encourage earlier involvement of Councillors.  This could be achieved by application forms being sent directly to Councillors when they were received, allowing questions and points of clarification to be resolved in advance, while the debate and determination of the application could still take place in public.

It was suggested that the grant applications could also be sent in advance to SCCAP and to Salisbury City Council for their comments, which could then be reported to the board through the officer’s report.

Some concern was raised that involving third parties in the grant evaluation process may contravene the policy agreed by Cabinet, although this could be checked outside of the meeting.

Decision

1.    The Salisbury Area Board agreed that grant applications should be sent to all Area Board Councillors as soon as the deadline for submission of grants has passed, to allow Councillors to raise comments, concerns and queries well in advance of the decision-making meeting.

2.    The Board further agreed that Salisbury City Council and Salisbury City Community Area Partnership be consulted on all grant applications, by means of the application being sent to them in advance of the meeting, and any comments being included within the officer’s report.

3.    That point 2 above be subject to officers confirming that this process complies with the legal and procedural framework for determining grant applications.

c.            Community Area Grants

(Note – Having declared a prejudicial interest in the following application, Councillor Ricky Rogers left the room for consideration of the application)

Decision

Life Education Centres Ltd was awarded £2,500 to help support the delivery of an education programme to primary school children on forming healthy lifestyle choices from January to July 2011

Reason – The application did not meet the Community Area Grants Criteria 2010/11 in that the funding would be used for on-going costs, and the project had already started.  However, the Area Board considered that the exception to the criteria was justified in this case due to the wider community benefit which would be realised by the project working directly with primary school children to encourage healthy lifestyle choices.