Agenda item

            (Ms. S. Stevenson, Culture and Arts Manager, attended in connection with this item.)

            Councillor Crozier declared an interest in this matter in that an organisation of which he was the Director had been awarded grant-assistance under the Initiative and left the room while the matter was under discussion.

            The Committee considered the undernoted report:

“Relevant Background Information

      BelfastCity Council’s Development and Outreach grants are intended to build capacity and boost cultural activity in communities with weak cultural and arts infrastructure.  The initiative is designed to extend participation and access to culture and arts activity for those most marginalised in society. Project beneficiaries must either have a disability focus or reside within one or more Super Output Areas in Belfast included in the 50% most deprived areas, according to the NISRA Multiple Deprivation Measure in Northern Ireland. The deadline for organisations to submit applications to the Development and Outreach scheme for the 2008/09 financial year was noon on Friday 8th February.  The guidelines, application form, and criteria for eligibility and assessment are as previously agreed for the scheme.

      Principles of the Reporting Process

      Summaries have been compiled by officers from the applications submitted to provide an overview of the programmes detailed in the applications. This is a summary of information received.  Applications are checked to ensure that they fulfil the eligibility criteria for the scheme.  Assessments are then carried out to establish how well the proposals perform against the agreed assessment criteria for the scheme. A summary is presented to indicate only the areas where the applicant performed particularly well against specific criteria or where there were weaknesses in the application.  The comments relate to both the strengths of the proposed programme and the evidence supplied within the application. A summary of each application, and officer assessments, can be viewed in Appendix E. Members are requested to use the assessments in tandem with the scores provided in Appendix D.  Grant histories for applicants are also provided for information, at Appendix C.  Appendix B to this introduction shows target areas from which applicants state that beneficiaries will be drawn.  These appendices are available on Modern.Gov.  It is recommended that all offers are made conditional, subject to satisfactory proof that the beneficiaries to be targeted will be drawn from the stated target wards along with clarification about how this will be done.

      Level of Applications

      Total budget available for The Development and Outreach initiative in 2008/09 is £160,000 which is a 3% increase on last years’ allocation. 

      £10,000 is ring-fenced for projects which promote creative expression and increased opportunities in Art/Heritage among young people.  Applications have been received for 28 grants (this is an increase of 7 on the previous year) for funds totalling £446,350.67.  This is almost three times the available level of funding.

      Members should note that it has been agreed that Officers do not approach organisations for further details relating to their proposal or for clarification of any areas of the application after the submission deadline.

Key Issues

      The standard of applications receive under the scheme this year has been exceptionally high. In previous years we have been able to recommend grants to applications which received a score of 60% or higher which is considered an above average level of application.

This year, due to the high standard of applications, it is only possible to recommend funding to applications scoring over 70% which is considered a strong level of application.

      The minimum amount recommended is £7,500 and the maximum amount recommended is £16,000 which corresponds closely to the level of grants awarded in 2007/8.

      Thirteen out of the twenty eight (45%) applications scored over 70% and have been recommended for funding; thirteen organisations also received funding in 2007/08 although this corresponded to a success rate of 65%.

      Rationale for funding decisions

      Officers have considered budgets on an individual basis and have recommended funding in relation to:

-     Strength of the proposed programme as assessed against agreed funding criteria.

-     Value for money of the project.  Reduction of the amount recommended has been suggested where costs are considered high or where some of the participants are not within the target areas or groupings.

-     Viability of the proposed programme within the funding offered.

      Applications scoring

Above 80%        Awarded 80% of requested amount*

75-80%               Awarded 75% of requested amount*

70-75                  Awarded 70% of requested amount*

Under 70%        Not awarded funding

      *All amounts are rounded to the nearest £500

      Nine organisations scored between 60 and 70%, however, they are not recommended to receive funding due to a lack of available resources.  A further £99,000 would be required to offer these organisations funding at the level of 70% of amount requested.

      Six organisations scored below 60% and are not recommended to receive funding.

Resource Implications

      A provisional budget of £160,000 has been allocated in the revenue estimates for the Development and Outreach Initiative in the 2008/09 financial year.  This represents an uplift of 3% of the budget allocated to Development and Outreach Initiative in 2007/08.

Recommendations

      It is recommended that Members agree the scores and recommendations in relation to Development and Outreach Funding.”

            After further discussion, the Committee adopted the officers’ recommendations to award the funding set out below:

Scores and Recommendations for Development and Outreach Funding