Minutes:
The Committee was reminded that, at its meeting on 21st April, it had considered a report providing details of the initial assessment of applications which had been received under the Summer Community Diversionary Festivals Programme for 2023, with the £500k being made available by the Council to be divided equally between projects being delivered in July and August.
The Committee had agreed to allocate £202,255 and £250,000 to those groups which had met the assessment criteria for projects to be delivered in July and August respectively. In terms of the underspend of £47,745 for the July programme, the Committee had granted approval for Council officers to meet with the five unsuccessful groups, namely, the Greater Village Regeneration Trust, the McDonald Centre, The Hubb Community Resource Centre, Phoenix Education and Woodvale Cricket Club, to determine if they had the capacity to deliver a reduced project from that which they had proposed initially. The Committee had granted approval also for a review to be undertaken of the Summer Community Diversionary Festivals Programme moving forward.
The Director of Neighbourhood Services reported that all five organisations had since advised that they were willing to deliver a reduced programme and had the required capacity to do so. The Greater Village Regeneration Trust had also confirmed that it had the ability also to deliver its original programme in full should funding be made available.
With that in mind, he recommended that the Committee consider which of the following options, if any, it wished to adopt:
i. to allocate £9,549 to each of the aforementioned five groups to deliver a reduced July programme in this instance; or
ii. to award the £47,745 in full to the Greater Village Regeneration Trust, which was next in the scoring list and had passed one stage of the assessment process, bearing in mind that the aim of the Programme was to support larger programmes at a minimum of £25k; or
iii. to not award the £47,745 to any group/s under the Programme for 2023.
The Director went on to recommend to the Committee that, should it decide to proceed with options i. or ii. above, approval be granted to any of those organisations wishing to use the Council’s Parks for their event or activity and that authority be delegated to the Director of Neighbourhood Services to negotiate satisfactory terms and conditions of use, via an appropriate legal agreement prepared by the City Solicitor, including managing final booking confirmation dates and flexibility around ‘set up’ and ‘take down’ periods and booking amendments, subject to:
· the completion of an appropriate management plan; and
· the promoter resolving any operational issues to the satisfaction of the Council and meeting all the statutory requirements of the Planning and Building Control Service, including the terms and conditions of the Park’s Entertainment Licence; and
After discussion, it was
Moved by Councillor Long,
Seconded by Councillor Hanvey,
That the Committee agrees, in light of the recent announcement by The Executive Office of a significant reduction in the amount of funding to be allocated to the Council this year under the District Council Good Relations Programme, that the underspend of £47,745 be used to develop a capacity building programme to be delivered in the autumn to groups which might wish to deliver activities next July, with any funding remaining to be returned to Departmental budgets.
Amendment
Moved by Alderman McCoubrey,
Seconded by Councillor Ferguson,
That the Committee agrees to allocate the entire underspend of £47,745 to the Greater Village Regeneration Trust, on the basis that it had
been the only one of the five unsuccessful applicants to have passed one stage of the assessment process.
On a vote, four Members voted for the amendment and fifteen against and it was declared lost.
The Committee subsequently agreed to adopt the proposal which had been made by Councillor Long and seconded by Councillor Hanvey.