Agenda item

Report attached.

The Cabinet considered a report of Councillor Peter Britcliffe, Deputy Leader of the Council and Portfolio Holder for Resources, concerning the creation of a Leader’s Budget and a Community Chest Fund for 2023/2024.

Councillor Britcliffe outlined the main elements of the report

Councillor Munsif Dad BEM JP expressed concern that the report had only been published yesterday and sought an assurance that information would be provided in a timelier manner in future.  The Leader indicated that the scheme had been developed very recently and the details had only just become available.

Councillor Dad noted that the Community Chest scheme proposed referred to revenue grants only and asked if capital bids might be possible.  Councillor Britcliffe indicated that further work would take place to draft the bid criteria.  It was proposed to delete the word ‘revenue’ from the recommendation at Paragraph 2.3 of the report and to amend Paragraph 4.5 accordingly.

Members also pointed out an error at Paragraph 4.1 of the report, as the Council had 16 wards (not 15), for which the total budget should be adjusted to £80,000 (from £75,000).  Consequential amendments were noted in relation to the information at Paragraphs 2.3 and 4.9 of the report.

Approval of the report was not deemed a key decision.

Reasons for Decision

Leader’s Budget 2023/2024

In the past the Council had set aside a Leader’s Budget to enable the Leader of the Council to:

• Support key service providers that might be under pressure and need assistance in delivery of key vital services and facilities for the benefit of the local residents;
• Support the civic function and the delivery of events for the general benefit of the Borough;
• Fund additional Council services that enhanced the local street scene and made Hyndburn a nicer place to visit.   

It was therefore proposed that this budget be re-introduced for 2023/2024 and that a sum of £20,000 be set aside for the Leader to propose and highlight the areas for funding.  The one-off budget would be funded by utilising some small outstanding balances of earmarked reserves that no longer had identified commitments against them.

The allocation of spending from this budget would be delegated to the Executive Director (Resources) following proposals and consultation with the Leader of the Council.

The funding of the budget for 2023/2024 would be allocated from earmarked reserves where it had been identified there were small balances remaining from previous external funding.  Those remaining balances had no clawback conditions and were now available to be used by the Council or placed into the general reserve.

The funding would come from:

Note: The Green Waste EM Reserve would have a zero balance after this use. The Covid – 19 reserve will have a balance of £206,025, with the majority of this funding is still subject to spend in 2023/2024 in accordance with grant conditions.

Community Chest 2023/2024

The intention of the Community Chest had initially been to create a budget of £75,000.  During the course of the meeting, it was recognised that having regard to the intention that the funds were to be shared equally throughout the Borough, with £5,000 allocated to each of the 16 wards, the total budget would need to be £80,000.

Charities and community groups across all wards would be invited to bid for grant funding from the Community Chest to be used in their own areas.

The intention was that those grants would be awarded to registered and well-established organisations across the Borough, with each charity and community group being required to hold their own designated bank account.

The application process would be proportionate to the size of grant and would not be too onerous so as to discourage applications; and each application would need to clearly state the community benefit that would be achieved with the grant funding.

The grants would not normally be given where funding would create on-costs or future maintenance costs for the Council unless those could be accommodated within existing budgets.

It was proposed that the grant applications would be assessed by a Cabinet Working Group and that those recommended for award would be presented to Cabinet for approval.

It was also proposed that a regular update would be made to Cabinet on the level of grants awarded and also the community benefits and achievements that had been generated as a result of the Community Chest programme.

The draft Revenue Outturn 2022/2024 (subject to external audit) had returned a year end surplus / underspend position of £345,020 compared to the previously forecast £128,906 as reported to Cabinet in March of this year, which was an increase of £216,114.

It was proposed that the £80,000 funding of the Community Chest could be accommodated from this additional surplus / underspends and would reduce the balance available to be placed into the underspends reserve to £265,020.

There were no alternative options for consideration or reasons

Resolved                                    -    That Cabinet

(1)   Agrees to the establishment of a Leader’s Budget of £20,000 for the year 2023/2024 to be funded from the use of surplus earmarked revenue reserves as detailed in Section 3 of the report.

(2)   Agrees to delegate authority to approve expenditure from the budget at Resolution (1) to the Executive Director (Resources) following consultation with the Leader of the Council.

(3)   Agrees to create a Community Chest for 2023/24 of £80,000 for the purpose of making grants to community groups based in Hyndburn as detailed in Section 4 of the report.

(4)   Agrees to allocate funding from the revenue budget surplus achieved in 2022/2023 as detailed in paragraph 4.9of the report.

(5)   Requests the Executive Director (Resources) and Executive Director (Legal & Democratic Services) to bring a report to the next meeting of Cabinet setting out proposed governance arrangements for the administration and distribution of these funds.