Agenda item

The report of the Head of Locality Partnerships provides the Community Committee with an update on the budget position for the Wellbeing Fund, Youth Activity Fund, Capital Budget, as well as the Community Infrastructure Levy Budget for 2021/22.

(Report attached)

The report of the Head of Locality Partnerships provided the Community Committee with an update on the budget position for the wellbeing Fund, Youth Activity Fund, Capital Budget, as well as the Community Infrastructure Levy Budget for 2021/22.

With the agreement of the Committee’s Chair, the following applications were circulated to Committee Members as supplementary information for their consideration at the meeting:

·  Empower (the Next Generation of Armley)

·  Explorer Tots

·  Hollybush Wellbeing in Wellies 2022

·  Area Activity Programme

·  Wythers Residential- Building relationships and reducing ASB

·  Burley Park Path Repairs and Resurfacing

·  Armley Action Team Events 2022-23

Cllr Gruen declared an Other Registrable Interest at this point in the meeting, as she is a member of the Board for BARCA who had submitted an application for Wellbeing funding. Having declared this interest Cllr Gruen took no part in the discussions on this application.

Cllr Illingworth had declared an Other Registrable Interest in Kirkstall Valley Development Team and Kirkstall Valley Park and took no part in discussions on these applications. Minute 47 refers

Members were informed of the following points:

·  The remaining balance of the Wellbeing Fund is currently £84,894.13. A full breakdown of the projects was listed at Table 1 of the submitted report. It was noted that the remaining balances per ward were:

o  Armley £38,796.79

o  Bramley & Stanningley £27,617.88

o  Kirkstall £18,479.46

·  Members were requested to consider the following applications:

Cllr McKenna raised a concern that Members had not had sufficient time to consider those applications prior to the meeting, which had been circulated as supplementary information. As such, Cllr McKenna abstained from voting upon those specific applications, as detailed below. Cllr McKenna also raised concerns regarding proposals to approve funding before the beginning of the financial year and in relation to match funding on certain applications:

-  Empower (the Next Generation of Armley)

-  Explorer Tots

-  Hollybush Wellbeing in Wellies 2022

-  Area Activity Programme

-  Wythers Residential- Building relationships and reducing ASB

-  Burley Park Path Repairs and Resurfacing

-  Armley Action Team Events 2022-23

·  Members noted the delegated decisions taken since the last meeting in November 2021.

·  Members were informed that the Youth Activity Fund had a remaining balance of £35,079.44. Table 2 of the submitted report listed the projects funded. And provided the balances for each ward.

·  The Small Grants and skips budget had a remaining balance of £1,453.97 with small grants projects approved listed at Table 3 and community skips provided listed at Table 4.

·  The Inner West Community Committee has a budget of £27,055.95 available to spend, as a result of new capital injections in October 2021. Capital allocations was listed at Table 5 in the report.

·  The Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) Budget currently has £84,818.42 available to spend. Spend to date was shown in Table 6.

Member’s discussions included:

·  Members were of the view that should social prescribing becomes successful it should be funded by the NHS.

·  Members were disappointed that a number of applications had been added to the agenda at short notice. Cllr Heselwood said that they had been added so that consideration of the applications could take place before the start of Purdah.

·  Members requested further clarity on the requirements around  declarations of interests with it being noted that most of the Members sat on various boards and committees to offer support to organisations in the Inner West area, and as referenced above, specifically regarding the application from Armley Action Team, a decision on this be deferred pending further clarification being provided to Members upon any potential declarations of interests which may be required in line with the Council’s Code of Conduct.

·  It was noted that in previous years Members had attended workshops to consider funding applications for the new financial year. Members were of the view that this had been a good approach with applications considered in a systematic way.

RESOLVED –

a)  That details of the Wellbeing Budget position (Table 1), be noted;

b)  That the Wellbeing proposals be determined, as detailed within the table above;

c)  That details of the projects approved via Delegated Decision Notice (Paragraph 30), be noted;

d)  That monitoring information of its funded projects (Paragraph 32-34), be noted;

e)  That details of the Youth Activities Fund (YAF) position (Table 2), be noted;

f)  That details of the Small Grants and Skips Budget (Tables 3 and 4), be noted;

g)  That details of the Capital Budget (Table 5), be noted

h)  That details of the Community Infrastructure Levy Budget (Table 6), be noted

Under the provisions of Council Procedure Rule 16.5, Councillor McKenna required it to be recorded that he abstained from voting on the following Wellbeing applications, for the reasons as set out above:

-Empower (the Next Generation of Armley)

-Explorer Tots

-Hollybush Wellbeing in Wellies 2022

-Area Activity Programme

-Wythers Residential- Building relationships and reducing ASB

-Burley Park Path Repairs and Resurfacing

-Armley Action Team Events 2022-23

Cllr Heselwood joined the meeting at 6:32 during consideration of the item.