Decision details

The report seeks approval from the Cabinet Member for those grants offers within each portfolio that are annually recurrent.

(i)     To approve acceptance of the grant offers detailed in the report and set out in Appendices 1 to 3 to the report;

(ii)    To approve that the Council will act as the Accountable Body in respect of the grant offers which are detailed in the report and set out in Appendices 1 to 3 to the report;

(iii)  To approve that the Council will act as the Accountable Body for a third party in respect of a grant offer, guarantee the liabilities of that third party and, where required, make grant payments to that party, where indicated in Appendices 1 to 3 to the report; and

(iv) To approve that the Executive Directors of the Place, Resources, and People Services Portfolios, in respect of the grant offers set out in Appendices 1 to 3, made in connection with their Portfolio, have authority to complete the funding agreements, in consultation with the Director of Legal and Governance and the Director of Finance and Commercial Services.

The reason why bulk approval of grants is the most beneficial option is summarised as follows:-

·         The grants are essential for funding service provision and without this funding, services would experience large scale budget reductions.

·         A limited number of grants at Appendices 1 to 3 require the Council to be the Accountable Body for third party liabilities and also to make grant payments to third parties.  The report also seeks approval for this.

·         Delegates the relevant Executive Director, in consultation with the Director of Finance and Commercial Services and Director of Legal and Governance, authority to finalise the grant funding agreement in accordance with Council procedures.

The following options for grant approval were also considered:-

(i)   Do not accept the grants.

(ii)Return to an individual grant approval process whereby each grant identified in the report would require its own individual report produced by individual Service Managers with individual sign off at the appropriate level. This will be more time consuming and will reduce the time that Service Managers can spend on frontline service delivery.

Given the efficiencies identified by the bulk approval of grants, it is recommended that this approval route is adopted rather than the approaches identified above – option 1 is not economically viable and option 2 will take up more time for Portfolios.