Agenda item

            The Director reminded the Committee that, at its meeting on 14th May, it had agreed to:

 

(i)    accept a Letter of Offer from the Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure for funding of £77,300 for the Community Festivals Fund;

 

(ii)    make available in the current financial year £120,000 for the Fund, subject to the Strategic Policy and Resources Committee agreeing to provide the finance required; and

 

(iii)   request that the Department increase the amount which it was providing to the Fund by £42,700 to match the Council’s proposed contribution.

 

            She advised the Committee that the Strategic Policy and Resources Committee, at its meeting on 20th June, had agreed to increase from reserves the cash limits of the Development Committee by £120,000 in order to finance the Fund.  In addition, the Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure had indicated that, whilst it was sympathetic to the Council’s position, it had no surplus monies to redistribute.  However, should such monies become available, the Council would have the first priority.  The Director pointed out that the Council was entitled to set aside 10% of the Fund to cover the administrative costs associated with this scheme.  Therefore, an amount of £177,570 would be available for distribution under the Community Festivals Fund.

 

            She informed the Members that it was intended to commence the scheme in September with a single invitation for applications which would close on 19th September.  The application would cover all events which were scheduled to take place from the earliest date for the award of grant aid, that is, 1st October, 2008 until March 2009.  The funding guidelines and administrative procedures regarding the Fund had been prepared and a copy of these were set out below:

 

“1.     INTRODUCTION

 

1.1   Belfast City Council (BCC) has accepted the commission from the Department of Culture Arts & Leisure (DCAL) to manage the Community Festivals Fund (formerly managed by the NI Events Company) in the Belfast area. DCAL is providing £77,300 as their contribution to the fund with BCC contributing a further £120,000 with a request to DCAL that they increase their contribution to match that from the Council. The total fund value for Belfast is, accordingly, £197,300. From this, a maximum operating budget of 10%  (£19,730) for administration has been set aside, leaving an amount available for distribution of £177,570.

 

1.2   In order to proceed to the full operating of the Fund, there is a need to establish detailed funding guidelines and an administrative and management procedure, in order for it to commence delivery of grants by September 2008, with a single call running until March 2009.

 

        In order to progress to this point, approval is required by members for the:

 

·         Recommendation of the minimum and maximum level of financial offer for community festivals;

 

·         Establishment of CFF criteria for the council broadly based on DCAL guidelines but in line with the current Development department’s strategy and strategic objectives;

 

·         Provision of recommendations on grant delivery procedure that department needs to implement in order to effectively administer CFF having in mind the timing issue including:

 

o        Advertising and communication;

o        Administration;

o        Assessment;

o        Appeals;

o        Monitoring;

o        Management

o        Evaluation.

 

·         Provision of detailed funding guidelines which should include:

 

o        A recommended version of guidance notes which will be passed to applicants;

o        Written terms and conditions of offer;

o        A standardised letter of offer;

o        Recommended method of assessment and weighting;

o        A template for marking of applications;

o        Recommendations on appeals procedure.        

 

·         Provision of delegated authority to administer the fund

 

2.     ASSESSMENT OF NEED FOR SCALE OF AWARDS AND PROCESS      

 

        Recommendation for the minimum and maximum level of financial offer for community festivals

 

2.1   On the basis of the materials provided by DCAL and their specified requirement that the programme help festivals move towards self?sufficiency and sustainability by providing training to ‘build capacity’, and on the basis of the Council’s specific requirement that the festivals as proposed meet specific criteria that contribute to the future development of the city by supporting communities and recognising that Council wishes to support as many communities as possible in their endeavour to continue to deliver existing festivals or to develop new ones, it is recommended that the upper and lower limit for awards be £10,000 and £2,500 respectively. The lower limit has been set at 25% of the upper and is recognised as the level below which it might be considered that a festival would be of insufficient scale to deliver on the capacity building requirement.

 

        Establish CFF criteria broadly based on DCAL guidelines but in line with the current Development department’s strategy and strategic objectives

 

2.2   Belfast City Council recognises the Fund as an investment in long?term community ‘capacity building’ which can most meaningfully contribute if it is aligned with the aims and objectives that guide Council as it leads and manages citywide development. Accordingly, Council has set down a series of specific ‘underpinning’ criteria with which applications for funding should seek to connect.  Evidence of this ‘connection’ should be included in every proposal.

 

      The criteria are: -

 

(a)   Providing Leadership

 

·         Recognising that festivals help communities come together and help them celebrate who they are and what they want their communities to become in the future.

·         Recognising that effective partnerships help lead development and that community festivals can be the start point for partnerships.

·         Recognising that the CFF is one way of enabling communities of place or interest to make their voices heard when it comes to policy making.

 

(b)   Promoting Social Inclusion and Cultural and Environmental Engagement

 

        It is recognised that local community festivals can have a positive economic impact generated not only through increasing local ‘spend’ but also by adding new skills and increasing enterprise within communities. They can also have a positive impact on helping to reduce division and the polarisation of communities by promoting good relations and they can increase the ‘levels of confidence, participation and engagement’ within communities. In so doing they can increase the capacity of citizens to make informed decisions about their neighbourhoods.

 

        Community festivals can also help to protect and promote the city’s heritage and help deliver a strong cultural experience, not only for the citizen but also for the visitor. They can also help with the creation of ‘shared space’.

 

        It is recommended that BCC welcomes applications that recognise these themes and provide a positive response to tackling them at the community level for either single or multiple communities.

 

(c)   Animating the City (Celebration)

 

        BCC recognises that communities have much to celebrate but often don’t have the resources to make that celebration to happen. Communities might wish to:-

 

·         celebrate their own or engage with others’ cultural identity (now more important than ever as communities expand to accommodate new migrants),

·         celebrate success in the arts or in sport, new infrastructure or some other development that will help the community grow

·         come together to share the moment across the generations. 

 

      Celebration can contribute to community cohesion and have a positive effect on the image of the community internally and across the rest of the city; it can help promote the city as well. CFF can have a role in making that celebration happen. It is recommended that If any proposal is to attract funding, BCC will require to have demonstrated :-

 

·         strength in depth in community engagement and participation,

·         quality in the delivery of festival events and

·         innovation and creativity in the way the festival meets its aims and objectives.

 

(d)   Regeneration (Community Led)

 

        It is established that where communities take the lead in local area regeneration everyone benefits . Festivals can be a first step in bringing communities together and building capacity (skills training and volunteering) to enable bigger regeneration issues to be tackled by the community; then they can be the means of celebrating what has been achieved. The CFF does not only see Festivals as a regeneration tool, however, festivals are worthwhile for the cultural development they provide, for their ability to enhance the use of public spaces and for the opportunity they provide for community participation and engagement. The CFF aims to recognise and support festivals for all that they might potentially deliver across Belfast.

 

        Provide recommendations on grant delivery procedure that the department needs to implement in order to effectively administer CFF having in mind the timing issue currently impacting on fund start up

 

2.3   The following papers are attached in order to deliver this requirement: -

 

·            Notes for Guidance which cover:-

 

o        The Community Festivals Fund – Introduction & Background

o        Conditions and Criteria Applying to the Award of Grant

o        The CFF Applications Process

o        The Evaluation/Assessment Process

o        Letter of Offer

o        Appeals Procedure

o        Monitoring & Reporting

o        Drawdown of Grant

o        Reclaim of Grant

o        Ineligible Costs

o        Advertising

 

·            Application Form

·            Evaluation/Assessment process ‘score sheet’

·            Administrative Process Map

·            Standardised Letter of Offer

 

      Advertising and communication

 

2.4   The period available within which to secure bids and deliver a community festivals programme in this current year is so short that a strong promotional programme will need to be undertaken if enough/the best applications are to be secured to ensure that the funding available is fully allocated.

 

2.5   The following are recommended: -

 

·           The initiation of a public relations programme around the formal launch of the Fund –targets include community media, press and broadcast media.

·           An e-mail promotional campaign using BCC client lists within Arts and Culture, and Community Services

·           An e-mail promotional campaign supported by BCC’s various partners e.g. VSB, NICVA

·           A poster campaign within BCC leisure and community centres

·           Advertising in Belfast Telegraph, Irish News and Belfast Newsletter

·           Web-based advertising on the BCC site and those of its community partners.

 

     A series of ‘in community clinics’  by BCC staff have, in other circumstances, proven to be a worthwhile investment in promotion and might also be usefully provided as part of the general promotional programme for CFF.

 

        Staffing

 

2.6   Having assessed the current workload of officers that might be involved in the delivery of the Fund, it is recommended that Council should engage an external consultant as lead assessor to manage the CFF evaluation and assessment process.

 

        Delegated Authority

 

2.7   Under Part II of the Council’s revised scheme of delegation, within subsection vi, it states that ‘Where the Committee has established a scheme for the awarding of small grants (ie. up to a maximum level of £10,000) and has authorised the Chief Officer to administer the scheme, then the Chief Officer has the delegated authority to approve the allocation of the grants in line with the award criteria.’ It is therefore recommended that this scheme is administered in this way, with the requirement for two outcomes/outputs reports back to committee in November 08 and March 09.”

 

            During discussion in the matter, the Director indicated that in future years it was intended that more than one invitation for applications would be organised, that groups which organised more than one festival could submit more than one application, that it was possible that the guidelines could be amended after the first year and that she would submit to a further meeting a report regarding the scheme which would be organised during 2009/2010.  In connection with questions from Members regarding the employment of a consultant, the Director indicated that, due to the resignation of the Culture and Arts Manager and a member of staff being on maternity leave, the Culture and Arts Unit was understaffed and could not therefore cope with the administration of the Fund.  In addition, the costs of using a consultant would result in the work associated with the Fund being carried out within the amount of money which the Council was entitled to use to administer the Fund.

 

            Following further discussion, the Committee agreed:

 

(i)    to adopt the criteria and guidance notes for the Fund;

 

(ii)   that the minimum and maximum level of grant to be offered be £2,500 and £10,000 respectively;

 

(iii)   that the Communications Plan for the scheme as set out in section 2.5 above be carried out;

 

(iv)  to delegate authority to the Director of Development under Part 2 of the Council’s Scheme of Delegation to administer and award grants under the Community Festivals Fund;

 

(v)   to engage an external consultant as a lead assessor to manage the Fund; and

 

(vi)  that the guidelines and administrative procedures be reconsidered following an assessment at the conclusion of the first year of the Fund.