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 4 to the report;

(ii)          to approve that the Council will act as the Accountable Body in respect of the grant offers where detailed in the report and set out in appendices 1 to 4 to the report; and

(iii)         that the Executive Directors of the Place, Resources, CYPF, and Communities portfolios, in respect of the grant offers set out in appendices 1 to 4 to the report, made in connection with their portfolio, be authorised, in consultation with the Director of Legal and Governance and the Director of Finance and Commercial Services, to agree the terms of and authorise the completion of the funding agreements.

Based on the experience gained from the management of the grants identified in the report there have been little or no material variations year on year in the purpose, terms and conditions and risks associated with these grants. Given the consistent nature of these grants, this report aims to consolidate the approval of all of them into one report. The benefits of collective approval of these grant allocations will mean significant savings in terms of time and workload for Service Managers who will not have to produce individual reports to approve each grant and will be able to focus the time saved on frontline service delivery. Executive Directors and Directors will have significantly less reports to review and sign off and will be able to focus on higher Portfolio priorities with the time saved. 

The Finance Service and Legal and Governance will continue to review the terms and conditions of each annual grant allocation. Any grant offer that has a material change in the purpose of the grant, its terms and conditions and/or the risks associated with it will then require a specific report to be produced which will go through the Council’s usual approval procedures.       

To continue with existing Council approval processes whereby each grant identified in the report will 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.