Agenda item

            (Mrs. A. Allen, Neighbourhood Services Manager, attended in connection with this item.)

            The Committee was reminded that the Council, at its meeting on 19th November, in passing a motion on Food Poverty, had agreed to create a fund of £300,000 to provide additional and holistic support to those who were in need this Christmas. £150,000 of that had been allocated to the Salvation Army and the St. Vincent de Paul Christmas Appeals.

            The Committee was reminded further that, at its meeting on 26th November, it had agreed that the remaining £150,000 be shared between the nine strategic area community partners across the City, based on the allocation method of 50% population and 50% need, using multiple deprivation as a proxy.  It had agreed also that £100,000 from anticipated funding of £505,000 from the Department for Communities, aimed primarily at addressing food poverty and financial hardship over the Christmas and New Year period, be allocated at risk to those partners, using the same allocation method. 

            The Neighbourhood Services Manager reported that the Department for Communities had since confirmed that the exact amount which it would be allocating to the Council would be £470,000. In addition, officers had been made aware of the potential for various units within the Department for Communities to provide the Council with additional funding, to focus upon the same high level priorities, with a requirement that it be utilised in full by the end of March, 2021. She provided details of the level of funding which would be likely to be forthcoming, subject to all formal agreements being put in place, and explained that, for the purpose of allocation, those had been merged into three distinct streams. Accordingly, she recommended that the Committee agree:

Funding Allocations

1.      Stream 1 - Food, Financial Hardship, Warm, Well and Connected (approximately £676,300)

a)     to allocate £353,800 to the nine area based strategic community partners, using the allocation method of 50% population and 50% need, with multiple deprivation as a proxy, to enable them to extend the reach and scope of their existing service provision;

b)     to allocate £322,500 immediately to thematic community/voluntary partners to support to the following organisations:

c)      that any increase in demand for the micro/medium grant programme already underway be met firstly from additional funding of approximately £486,000 which it was anticipated would be forthcoming in January from the Department for Communities, as part of its general Covid-19 community support programme.  Given the tight timescales involved in delivery, that is, by the end of March 2021, approximately 50% of the funding remaining should be distributed to the nine strategic community partners, using the allocation method alluded to in part a), approximately 50% be allocated to those thematic community/voluntary organisations referred to in part b) above;

2.      Stream 2 – Volunteer Fund (approximately £117,500)

a)     to allocate £100,000 to the nine strategic community partners, using the allocation method of 50% population and 50% need, with multiple deprivation as a proxy, to plan volunteer recognition programmes before the end of the financial year for their areas;  and

b)     that the remaining £17,500 be made available to support volunteer expenses/costs as part of existing grant programmes.

3.      Stream 3 – Financial Inclusion (approximately £175,148)

a)     to ring fence £15,000 for the Belfast Advice Group to secure the technical assistance which it needs to help it business plan for increased demand for advice services in 2021/22 and beyond, as a result of the impacts of Covid-19; and

b)     to allocate the remaining £160,148 is distributed to existing advice Consortia, using the existing Council model for financial allocation in relation to advice.

Additional Recommendations

4.      Ongoing Financial Management

-        that a review of the financial position and overall progress be scheduled for the end of January, 2021, to allow for any decisions around potential reallocation of funding to be made by the Committee in sufficient time as to enable local delivery to take place.

5.      Request for Extension

-        that, in light of the significant level of funding which the Council would be expected to allocate to local community/voluntary partners so close to the end of the current financial year, a letter be forwarded to the Department for Communities requesting that the delivery period be extended until the end of June, 2021.

            It was

Moved by Councillor Carson,

Seconded by Councillor Beattie,

      That the Committee agrees to adopt the foregoing recommendations.

            At the request of a Member, the proposer agreed to amend recommendation 3.b) to the effect that £28,000 be allocated to Belfast and Lisburn Women’s Aid and agreed further, at the request of another Member, to allocate £16,500 to the “We are Pangs” perinatal health charity, thereby leaving £115,648 for distribution to existing advice consortia.

            After discussion, the Committee:

                    i.        adopted the recommendations set out above, subject to the amendment of recommendation 3.b) to reflect the allocations which had been made to Belfast and Lisburn Women’s Aid and We are Pangs; and

                   ii.        in noting that the Council, at its meeting on 1st December, had delegated authority to it to take decisions around the allocation of Covid-19 Christmas Response Funding, agreed, in accordance with Standing Order 47 (a) (2) (c), that the foregoing decisions would not be subject to call-in, on the basis that an unreasonable delay could be prejudicial to the Council’s or the public’s interest.

            The Committee noted that the Neighbourhood Services Manager would brief Members on the roles and membership of the five Children and Young Person’s Locality Groups operating across Belfast, which had secured funding under Stream 1.b)