Cabinet was presented with proposals to establish a new strategic one council grants funding approach, approval was sought for the new grant funding Prospectus and Framework 2022-23 and to launch the first new grants programme from January 2022.
Work had taken place to develop a coordinated one council strategic grants approach and programme to deliver positive change that was built around people and the places where they lived and worked. This would lead to a fundamental change in the way the Council delivered grant funding, putting in place transparent and consistent processes and procedures whilst aligning grant funding to the Council’s ambitions and priorities.
The new approach would see the Council distribute grants using an outcomes-based model, supporting innovative and creative activity, projects, and programmes to secure improved outcomes which meet the ambitions set out in the Council Plan 2021-25.
The approach would be underpinned by two fundamental documents – a Funding Prospectus (which would set out the Council’s strategic grant funding priorities on an annual basis, a flexible and agile document which would be refreshed regularly to reflect the Council’s funding priorities at any given time) (Appendix 2) and a Funding Framework (which would set out the technical grant funding requirements, enabling the Council to provide clarity and transparency to funding recipients whilst also moving towards a greater degree of consistency across the Council) (Appendix 3). Both documents were described further in the report.
The proposed Prospectus and Framework would develop and become embedded to accommodate all Council grant funded activity and deliver a consistent grant funding approach across the authority. Further reports on the development of the approach as the scope widened would be brought to Cabinet in due course.
RESOLVED – to (1) approve proposals to establish a new one council strategic grants programme for the Council as outlined in thereport; (2) approve the Derbyshire Grant Funding Prospectus2022-2023; (3) allocate an initial sum of £1,650,000 to support the launch of the new Grant Funding Prospectus and Grants Funding Programme in January 2022; (4) approve proposals to establish the Derbyshire Grant Funding Framework 2022-2025 as set out in the report; (5) approve proposals to allocate ten percent of the total funding for coordination of the programme and associated administrativecosts; and (6) receive reports on progress of the approach at a future meeting and further proposals for the broadening, development and refresh of the Prospectus as additional grant funding activity from across the Council is aligned to the new approach.