Agenda item

To receive a report providing an update on the Council’s grants programmes, inclusive of the ‘You Decide’ Participatory Budgeting inititative.

 

Please note that the Chair and members of the Community & Wellbeing Scrutiny Committee have been invited to attend this meeting in order to consider this item as a joint scrutiny review.

 

Councillor Donnelly – Jackson (Cabinet Member for Community Engagement, Equalities & Culture) introduced a report updating the Scrutiny Committee on the Council’s grants programmes with  particular emphasis on the participatory budgeting initiative “You Decide” whereby the local community were actively involved in voting for the local projects they believed would most benefit the community and should be awarded funding.

 

Lorna Hughes (LH) Operational Director, Engagement Strategy and Communications advised the Committee of the broader scope of grants that the Council made available to community in addition the You Decide Grants including the smaller Love Where You Live Grant that awarded up to £1000 and the Edward Harvist Grant that was a medium level grant offering up to £5000 for applicants. There were also grants available for the Carbon Offset Fund, Neighbourhood Community Infrastructure Levy (NCIL) and Brent Health Matters. The Committee heard that the You Decide funding of £2 million was split equally between the 5 Brent Connect areas, with each area allocated £400,000. The emphasis of the You Decide Participatory Grant was to maximise community engagement, it was felt this approach had been successful with an unprecedented 149 application received with 479 residents having taken part across the 5 separate events.

The Committee were advised that Brent had provided the largest participatory budgeting funds across London, however going forward with the current budgetary pressures there were likely to be uncertain times ahead in accruing revenue from NCIL to support this.

In summarising LH shared that the trialling of the You Decide Participatory Budgeting Scheme was felt to have been a successful initiative, allowing for increased community engagement and local organisations to benefit from funding that was invested back in to the community. It was acknowledged that there were further areas of development to build on to increase the reach and further enhance community engagement.

 

In order to provide the Committee with greater insight in to the experiences of the community groups who had actively applied for a grant, several community organisation representatives were in attendance to share their experiences.

 

The Chair proceeded to invite the first community speaker Jon Coming - Higgs from Elders Voice to address the Committee, with the following key points shared:

 

• Elders Voice was a local organisation that supported elderly residents to live safely and independently in their own homes through community support.

 

• The application experience had been overwhelmingly positive, Mr Coming – Higgs advised the Committee that if he had to apply for a grant in the traditional capacity he felt it was unlikely to have been successful as the nature of their project  was focused on learning how to support the elderly community with outcomes being qualitative rather than quantitative, a lack of measurable data may have hindered their application success if the grant application was rolled out in the more traditional way.

 

•  It was highlighted as a strength that Brent valued the voices of the local community and had explored a more dynamic approach to community engagement and grant allocation.

 

• It was suggested that to continue to build on the success of the You Decide Grant process that Local Authority grant commissioners should learn the language of local organisations rather than having an expectation of local residents and organisations learning the language of commissioners as this could lead to a gulf in communication whereby officers are missing what really matters to local residents.

 

• Mr Coming – Higgs expressed his gratitude to Lorna Hughes (Operational Director, Engagement Strategy and Communications)  for her commitment in trying to break down barriers and provide the local community with a meaningful voice to support effective positive change.

 

The Chair thanked Mr Coming – Higgs for his contribution to the meeting and asked officers if they had any clarifying questions, as no issues were raised the next community speaker, Leslie Barson, Granville Community Kitchen was invited to address the Committee.

 

·         Ms Barson began by expressing that she felt the You Decide scheme was a welcome opportunity for the local community to gain an insight in to the work of community organisations and also provided a unique way for community grant applicants to apply for funding. However she felt that there were some operational issues that could be improved to support the experience for budget applicants.

 

·         It was felt that the application process was weighted heavily in favour of applicants who had a strength in public speaking, as part of the process was to present publicly to your local Brent Connects area to persuade your local community why they should vote for your application. There was concern that this could disadvantage some projects from being awarded funding and also discourage some applicants from making an application at all.

 

·         It was suggested that to support public participation it may also be useful to have hybrid events where attendees could take part and vote /present via Zoom as well as in person.

 

·         It was felt there was some disparity regarding the success of the Brent Connects sessions in terms of the number of attendees, Ms Barson advised that there were very low numbers at the event she presented at in comparison to other events.

 

·         Ms Barson shared that she had feedback from some residents that they weren’t clear on where their address fell in terms of which Brent Connects event they could attend.

 

·         The final area of development raised was with regard to the lack of clarity received from Brent in terms of the paperwork needed to progress the process of receiving funding from the point of successful applicants being awarded the grant. Ms Barson reflected that in the case of the Granville Community Kitchen, they were awarded the grant on 18 June 2022 however to date the funds had not been received.

 

·         Ms Barson advised that part of the delay in receiving the funds was due to additional paperwork required that Ms Barson felt had not been made clear at the beginning of the process, additionally it was felt there was a lack of timely communication with officers at some points in the process. Concern was shared that this could deter some groups from applying due to the amount of paperwork required for what was considered a relatively small grant in grant terms.

 

·         Ms Barson closed her comments by re-iterating her thanks to Brent on behalf of the organisation and echoed her belief that once all the “teething issues” had been resolved the You Decide system of awarding grants was an innovative way to involve the local community in participatory budgeting.

 

The Chair thanked Ms Barson for sharing her experience and advising on areas that she felt could be developed further, it was noted that the input shared would inform the Committee’s questioning to support improving the process.

 

Councillor Ketan Sheth (Chair of the Community Health & Wellbeing Scrutiny Committee asked Ms Barson what she believed were the top priorities that needed to be addressed to improve the bidding process. In response Ms Barson advised that she believed that the key priorities were to increase opportunities for public participation, giving the example of hybrid options to join meetings, increased publicity of the applications that were being presented to vote on so that members of the public could read up in advance on the organisations and their projects and providing applicants at the outset of the application process with a break down of the process including all the documentation that would be needed.

 

As there were no further questions, the Chair invited the third community speaker Sacha Dsane from Financial Harmony to share her experience with the Committee with the following key points shared:

 

·         Ms Dsane advised the Committee that her organisation’s project that aimed to support adults and young people in financial literacy and personal finances had been unsuccessful in being awarded a grant.

 

·         Ms Dsane felt that in general terms the application process went well although the public speaking element of the application process had not been best suited to the presentation of her organisations application.

 

·         The event that Ms Dsane spoke at was well subscribed with approximately 200 residents in attendance, however among these attendees there was one particular group who had brought approximately 60-70 supporters with them to vote. It was felt this immediately disadvantaged all other applicants for this session

 

·         In closing her comments Ms Dsane commended the idea of encouraging more community engagement in the grants awarding process for community schemes, however felt it was important to recognise the balance needed in ensuring voting was undertaken fairly.

 

 

The Chair thanked Ms Dsane for her contribution to the meeting and asked the Committee if they had any further questions. The Committee did not have any specific questions, however in thanking Ms Dsane for her representation, the Committee noted the issues raised and recognised that some group’s abilities to mobilise a group of supporters to vote for their project did not necessarily reflect how useful the project could be to residents.

The final speaker Colin George was then invited to address the Committee to share his feedback in his capacity as a resident who participated in the voting process at one of the You Decide events, with the following key points shared –

 

·         Mr George shared that he had been a Brent resident for 45 years and active as a community volunteer since 1978, therefore had a wealth of experience within the community and voluntary sector. In addition to this he was also a trustee of the Harlesden Neighbourhood Forum.

 

·         Mr George advised the Committee that he felt it should be made clear to applicants and voters that grants being allocated in line with the NCIL criteria should include lasting benefits, Mr George felt this was not evident in the presentations shared at the event he attended.

 

·         As a neutral observer, Mr George felt he was in a position to make fair assessments of all the presentations heard and in his assessment felt that there was no correlation between the strength of the presentation and their success rate, leading to further queries regarding how fair the voting system was.

 

·         Mr George felt that the general organisation of the event was good, however it was suggested that more information on the applications would have been of benefit for members of the public attending.

 

·         In line with the comments made by the other community speakers Mr George believed that .efforts should be made to prevent large numbers of supporters registering to attend to vote at events as votes would then be awarded on the basis of friendships and affiliations rather than projects being assessed on their own merits

 

The Chair thanked Mr George for his comments and proceeded to allow the Committee to ask officers questions, which are noted below:

 

·         In response to a Committee question regarding how the challenges as a result of increased budgetary pressures in local government would impact the support provided to local Community and Voluntary Sector (CVS) organisations, officers advised that work was ongoing to support and prepare the CVS in their preparedness for the challenging times ahead. This included support to encourage greater collaboration and networking to aid CVS organisations in submitting bids in partnership to increase their funding opportunities.

 

·         The Committee raised concerns regarding the potential abuse of the participatory budgeting system with particular regard to the issues raised around block voting. In response the Committee were advised that where suspicious voting activity had been observed, votes had been removed. Moving forward further discussion would be undertaken to facilitate fair voting systems.

 

·         In response to a Committee observation that 25-29 year olds were under represented at You Decide events in addition to generally low attendance at events in the South of the borough, the Committee were advised that it was a priority to engage more young adults to make sure their views were represented, particularly where there were projects that were specifically targeted towards young people. It was noted that Brent Youth Parliament would be instrumental in supporting the success of this. It was also suggested that collecting additional demographic data at future events could support the identification and targeting of under represented groups . Processes could then be put in place to increase engagement ensuring as broad a demographic group were represented and could contribute at subsequent events.

 

·         The Committee queried the lack of community engagement due to the very low number of attendees at the Brent Health Matters You Decide Event in Willesden. In addition to this the Committee noted that as health inequalities were widely acknowledged to profoundly impact people from ethnic minority backgrounds it was important that people voting for projects adequately reflected this group. As a result the Committee questioned how confident they could be that the results from this event reflected the voice of the community. In response to the Committee query, officers established that Pride celebrations had taken place in London on the same day therefore possibly impacted event numbers at the event. In acknowledgement of the points raised officer advised that to add value to the process of future events they would explore setting a minimum number of participants in addition to reaching out to under represented communities to encourage engagement either as a member of the public voting or as part of an organisation bidding for funding.

 

·         In terms of the Carbon Offset Funding Grant the Committee noted the responsibility of the Local Authority to ensure that funding was used to maximise the impacts of carbon reduction, this led the Committee to query if delegating the decision making responsibility to residents as part of the participatory process was the most effective way to maximise funding, particularly as residents were not experts in this area. This raised further queries as to how residents had been supported to understand Carbon Offset Funding.

 

·         Officers advised the Committee that the decision was taken to pilot using the part of the funding in this way after recognising the low carbon literacy among residents in Brent, therefore it was recognised as a priority to engage and communicate with residents from the outset to educate and support increased carbon literacy. This objective was achieved through focusing on reaching all sections of Brent’s community, tapping into existing networks but also making sure to target hard to reach areas and those who were reluctant to engage. This involved producing communications and marketing materials in community languages and lots of face-to-face community engagement with expert speakers to provide technical advice.

 

·         Officers felt delegating some responsibilities to residents through the participatory aspect of the scheme was appropriate as part of the pilot project to allow residents to feel involved in affecting positive change in the community to reduce emissions and tackle climate change.

 

·       It was felt there was a high value attached to the work undertaken with

    the residents planning group. The group had vastly increased their

    knowledge in understanding carbon emissions and how the carbon offset

    fund worked. It was hoped this information would then cascade out into the

    wider community, offering increased community knowledge and

    engagement.

 

·    Officers noted Committee comments recognising the scope to utilise the

    research available as to how to maximise funding to achieve maximum

    impact in reducing emissions.  It was confirmed that the Carbon Offset

    Funding would not be distributed in the same way moving forwards,

    following confirmation from the Cabinet meeting in June 2022,  the

    remainder of the funding would  be split 60% to council housing, 30% to

   schools and the remaining 10% to be kept as a buffer for other funding bids.

 

Due to time constraints additional questions regarding the Carbon Offset Funding would be addressed at the next Resources & Public Realm Scrutiny Committee in January 2023. Officers welcomed Committee members to email them any specific questions directly.

 

The Chair thanked those present for their contributions to the discussion, and closed the item by summarising the suggestions for improvement and information requests made by the Committee, which are noted below:

 

The Committee noted the following suggestions for improvement:

 

i.              Ensure monies distributed as part of the Carbon Offset Fund are targeted to communities/areas in most need.

ii.            Introduce a ballot system into the ‘You Decide’ initiative, whereby residents who wish to attend decision days apply for tickets in a ballot. Tickets could then be allocated randomly to avoid block voting and popularity contests

 

iii.           Capture and include information such as age and ethnicity in ‘You Decide’ data gathering to ensure attendees voting are representative of the borough’s demographic

iv.           Add a requirement for those applying for monies as part of the ‘You Decide’ initiative to have someone with lived experience as part of their presentation.

v.            Utilise local councillors in engaging hard to reach residents to participate in future ‘You Decide’ decision days. 

vi.           Improve communications around the ‘You Decide’ application process so forthcoming applicants are aware of the eligibility criteria, and time commitments associated with the application process before applying.  This includes setting out clear expectations around the documentation successful applicants need to provide, and the time it will take to receive funding.

vii.          Strengthen criteria for allocating NHS funding through Love Where You Live grant funding to ensure monies are directed to the appropriate organisations for maximum impact in reducing health inequalities amongst Black African Heritage communities.

 

viii.         Support our voluntary and community sector organisations in building new income generation streams.

 

The Committee noted the following information requests:

 

i.              Provide voting data across all “You Decide” sessions that have taken place so far in 2022. To be inclusive of the voting data related to the Carbon Offset Fund, NCIL, and Brent Health Matters Health and Wellbeing grants.

ii.            Provide detailed information on the ‘You Decide’ project monitoring processes in place.

 

iii.           Provide information on the difference between the standard NCIL application rounds versus the ‘You Decide’ application rounds and the rationale why the monies are split this way.

iv.           What is the approach to preventing duplication in funding across Council directorates, especially in a time of oversubscription of grants with diminishing resource?

v.            Provide a feasibility report into different options for voting on ‘You Decide’ decision days to increase accessibility.