Agenda and minutes

            Apologies were reported on behalf of Aldermen Humphrey and Rodgers and Councillor Thompson.

            No declarations were reported.

            The Committee considered the undernoted report:

“1        Relevant Background Information

1.1       The ‘Building Better Communities - Belfast Community Investment Programme’ (BCIP) is a joint project between the Council and DSD to create a single £5.4 million strategic community development fund for Belfast. The programme will be directly managed by the council.

1.2       It is expected that BCIP will open for applications from community organisations across the entire city in October 2013 and initially will offer contracts for one year (2014/2015). During this first ‘pilot’ year the approach to the programme will be evaluated and enhanced prior to a new call for funding from 2015 onwards. A number of the contracts from 2015 are likely to be multi-annual.

1.3       The funding pot for BCIP will draw on the budget that will become available when DSD and the Council’s current community development grant schemes come to an end in March 2014. These existing schemes include Community Service’s Advice and Information Grant, Capacity Support Grant, Revenue and other small community grants; the Belfast Regeneration Office’s Neighbourhood Renewal funding for community development; and the Voluntary and Community Unit’s Community Investment Fund in Belfast.

1.4       While each of these existing funds broadly support community development activity, they all operate with different approaches, catchment areas, allocation weightings, criteria, application processes, etc. BCIP aims to replace this complexity with a simplified Belfast-wide strategic programme that has new criteria designed to specifically focus on support for community development outcomes for residents and communities.

1.5       Both the Council, through its Community Development strategy, and DSD, through its draft Urban Regeneration and Community Development Framework (which will form the basis of the transfer of urban regeneration and community development responsibilities to councils) recognise the importance of a strong community infrastructure in enabling community, social and economic objectives to be achieved in more sustainable and efficient ways. BCIP is about providing effective grant and developmental support to make sure this infrastructure is in place.

1.6       Members will recall that, at its meeting on 14 January 2013, Development Committee adopted an ‘outcomes framework’ for BCIP that defines the impact that the programme is expected to have in the city. This framework proposes two ‘strategic’ outcomes for community development work:

1. Residents are active and involved;

2. Communities are engaged and influential.

And three ‘programme’ outcomes:

3. Community groups are more resilient and thriving;

4. People have access to welcoming and inclusive community space;

5. People have access to services and support.

1.7       With these agreed outcomes in place, officers have been working since February to design new grant streams which can directly support these outcomes. This paper presents the grant programme for Members’ consideration and outlines plans for both a public consultation and an Equality Impact Assessment on the proposals.

1.8       Members should note that both the Council and DSD committed from the outset of BCIP to engaging fully on the design and implementation of the programme. A ‘pre-consultation’ phase from August 2012 to February 2013 included a series of workshops  ...  view the full minutes text for item 3.