Agenda item

To receive the minutes and consider the recommendations and/or referrals from the meeting of the Executive Committee held on 13^th September 2016.  There are recommendations to the Council on the following items:

Minute no. 26: Voluntary and Community Sector Grants 2017-18;

Minute no. 28: ICT Infrastructure Resource;

Minute no. 29: Efficiency Plan 2016/17 – 2019/20

The recommendations and reports are enclosed with this agenda.  The minutes are included in minute book 2.

Members considered the minutes of the Executive Committee meeting held on 13th September 2016.  There were a number of recommendations to be debated which were discussed as follows:

Voluntary and Community Sector (VCS) Grants

There was general consensus amongst Members that the Council’s grants programme was valuable and should continue to be funded.  However, different views were expressed about the proposal for any underspends in the grants at the end of any year to be put back into balances.  On the one hand concerns were raised that this would represent a reduction in funding for VCS organisations which were struggling to secure funding from other sources in difficult economic circumstances. As an alternative it was suggested that any unspent funds could be placed in reserves earmarked for use in the grants process. On the other hand it was noted that every effort was made to promote the various rounds of the grant process and that the Council wanted to ensure that the funds were made available to VCS groups.  By following the Shopping, Investing and Giving (SIG) model of funding it was anticipated that all funds would be used to support the Voluntary Sector. In cases where there had been unspent funds in previous years this had either been a very low number or had occurred due to exceptional circumstances involving the closure of an organisation in receipt of funding.

The availability of support for the grants process was also discussed.  There had been no Grants Officer at the Council for some time. The potential to recruit to this post would be investigated further over the coming months.

ICT Infrastructure Resource

During debate on this item clarification was provided which confirmed that this decision would apply to two specific posts only and not to the whole of the shared ICT team.

Efficiency Plan 2016/17 to 2019/20

The Government had offered local authorities an opportunity to sign up to four year financial plans and the majority of Councils had accepted this offer. The content of the Council’s proposed Efficiency Plan was similar to that for other Councils.  This did not mean that the Council accepted the concept of the negative grant position, whereby the authority would need to pay the Government from a set date.  The Council would continue to work the Local Government Association (LGA) in an attempt to challenge this.

RESOLVED that

the minutes of the meeting of the Executive Committee held on

13th September 2016 be received and all recommendations adopted.