Agenda item

Purpose of the report: This report presents an update on Your Fund Surrey and is presented for scrutiny.

Witnesses:

Denise Turner-Stewart, Cabinet Member for Communities and Community Safety

Marie Snelling, Executive Director of Customer and Communities

Nikki Tagg, Your Fund Surrey Programme Manager

Jane Last, Head of Community, Partnerships & Engagement

Key points raised during the discussion:

1.    The Cabinet Member for Communities and Community Safety provided a summary of the work that had taken place following the constructive suggestions and recommendations provided by the Communities, Environment and Highways Select Committee (CEHSC) in March 2022.

2.    The Chairman, in referring to paragraph 11 of Annex 1 of the report noted that there had been no funded applications in the first decile and queried if the new Community Link Officers, dedicated to working in the more deprived areas of Surrey, had reported any interest or identified areas of capacity building for future approval. The Cabinet Member for Communities and Community Safety said that the impact of the Community Link Officer (CLOs) and their targeted focus on those key areas had been felt immediately with one application within decile one expected at Advisory Panel this week. The Head of Community, Partnerships and Engagement added that interest from these areas had increased following ‘Let’s Talk’ events to encourage residents to consider which projects could benefit their communities and how to organise themselves to achieve their aims with the support of Your Fund Surrey officers. The ‘let’s Talk events will take place in 21 key areas.

3.    A Member asked how officers expected Your Fund Surrey (YFS) to develop over the five-year period since it was launched two years ago. The Cabinet Member for Communities and Community Safety said it was evident that the flow of the programme is increasing, partly due to complex projects, which had applied at the beginning of the programme, now being ready to be assessed.

4.    A Member queried the scope to reduce the lower limit for applications to £1,000 to allow more groups to apply for smaller projects and to address the gap between the current Member Community Allocation (MCA) grant of £5,000 a year and the starting point for Your Fund Surrey applications of £10,000. The Cabinet Member for Communities and Community Safety explained that the minimum for the new smaller projects fund would be £1,000 and as such, bridged the gap between Members Community Allocation and the Your Fund Surrey large projects fund. The smaller projects fund was designed to enable a more flexible and simpler local allocation. A Member asked that applications made during the last two years be revisited with the new lower limit in mind and requested that all Members be notified regarding the new £1,000 minimum for smaller projects. The Cabinet Member for Communities and Community Safety Confirmed that a report to Cabinet was planned for late December 2022 followed by a full briefing to all Members adding that all previous unsuccessful applications would be revisited.

5.    A Vice Chairman, in referencing that 16 per cent of current live applications were valued at £50,000 or less, queried the percentage of current live applications valued at £100,000 or less. The Your Fund Surrey Programme Manager confirmed that 32 per cent of applications in the current pipeline were under £100,000.

6.    A Vice Chairman asked for clarification around the reference to projects valued under £100,000 being less complex. The Your Fund Surrey Programme Manager said that less complex projects were simpler to manage because they involved fewer partners, funding streams and planning permissions thus requiring less due diligence and governance. The Vice Chairman asked if the proposal to cap the smaller projects fund contribution could be increased from £50,000 to £100,000 for these simpler projects. The Cabinet Member for Cabinet Member for Communities and Community Safety explained that the process would be reviewed, however the current cap was considered a balanced approach at this time following an evaluation of public value, the current economic climate and the need for a directly devolved budget for Members.

7.    A Vice Chairman suggested that information about the total value allocated by Surrey decile in addition to the number of applications and the average value would be useful.

8.    A Vice Chairman asked why Surrey deciles were being used instead of national deciles and requested clarification between the two. The Cabinet Member for Communities and Community Safety explained that nationally, many Surrey areas sat within deciles nine or ten. There are many complexities of the county which include extreme affluence adjacent to extreme deprivation. The Your Fund Surrey Programme Manager said for national deciles, each area within the country was split into smaller areas known as Lower Layer Super Output Areas (LSOA) and ranked based on specific criteria including education and housing and allocated equally into ten equal parts (ten deciles). The data analytics team had advised that Surrey deciles should be used for YFS to consider the relative deprivation of different projects whilst using the same statistics at national level.

9.    A Vice Chairman asked which decile an application from a deprived area located within an overall wealthier area would be included in. The Your Fund Surrey Programme Manager said postcodes and a broad range of additional information were used to provide an indication of ranking.

10.A Member asked if the £50,000 Members allowance was per year for two years or £50,000 over two years. The Your Fund Surrey Programme Manager confirmed that the YFS small project Fund allocated £50,000 for each Member to the end of March 2025.

11.A Member asked if the £50,000 Members allowance could be prioritised for Greener Futures projects by division. The Cabinet member for Communities and Community Safety said that a menu of choices, particularly for those applications that had not previously met the threshold was being looked at with the Greener Futures team in the hope of encouraging spend on Greener Futures projects. The Your Fund Surrey Programme Manager noted the involvement of the Greener Futures team in every project for their opinion and to ensure that applications approved complimented the green agenda.

12.A Member queried the current cost of running the scheme, including headcount deployed centrally, CLOs and interest costs. The Head of Community, Partnerships & Engagement confirmed £240,000 for the cost of the core YFS team from the Community, Partnership and Engagement budget. An expert panel formed of colleagues from other departments such as Greener Futures and Finance also assist in the assessment of applications and the organisation of funding agreements. Officers responsible for the Member Community Allocation fund were now part of the YFS team and would have capacity throughout the year to look after YFS applications.

13.A Member asked which budget area the running costs were included in and queried if interest costs and capital costs would remain on the Council’s balance sheet causing depreciation and if so, where would the depreciation appear in the budget. The Executive Director of Customer and Communities confirmed that capital allocations for YFS were treated in the same way as the wider capital programme.

14.A Member, in referencing chart 2 –the Annex of the report asked what Officers would like the final chart to look like. The Cabinet Member for Communities and Community Safety said that an even distribution of funding across Surrey was the aim with specific investment in deprived communities.

15.A Member was concerned that using deciles was not appropriate for some rural areas. The Your Fund Surrey Programme Manager agreed that whilst using deciles as one element was useful, other avenues were also considered to form the basis of decisions including Member knowledge, CLOs and the voluntary sector.

16.A Member welcomed the improvement evident since the March 2022 report to the Select Committee and asked if Members and their input would be included in marketing campaigns and events organised by CLOs. The Cabinet Member for Communities and Community Safety said web pages had gone live with contact details available in addition to regular Member updates which were being planned. Members played an integral role with their input carrying considerable weight in encouraging the advisory panel’s support of applications.

17.A Member, despite having had some issues with YFS, noted their support of the ambitious scheme and suggested that more focused Surrey County Council branding was required.

18.A Member asked if officers had been in touch with organisers of the schemes already approved that involved building projects to discuss increased costs and to revisit the contingency previously approved. The Cabinet Member for Communities and Community Safety said that in addition to the original 20 percent contingency, Cabinet had approved further 10 per cent contingency given the critical inflationary period being experienced. The Your Fund Surrey Programme Manager confirmed that projects were monitored throughout their build.

19.A Member asked if YFS was exclusively for capital projects and queried if any element of revenue was permitted. The Head of Community, Partnerships & Engagement confirmed that YFS was capital money and so no revenue could be considered.

20.A Member queried if there was scope for the Cabinet Member to increase funds beyond £5,000 through the Member Community Allowance. The Cabinet member for Communities and Community Safety said that was a discussion for the next budget round however the smaller projects fund would allow for more flexibility within the existing fund.

21.A Vice Chairman noted that in Annex A, the ‘Division’ heading should read ‘districts and boroughs’ and suggested a future breakdown by division, district and borough. The Executive Director of Customer and Communities confirmed that this information had been collated and was available on the Member portal.

Resolved:

The Communities, Environment and Highways Select Committee:

1.    Welcomes the accelerated pace of Your Fund Surrey (YFS) approvals over recent months albeit the totals are someway short of original estimates.

2.    Strongly supports the introduction (within the YFS Framework) of the new regime designed to encourage smaller capital bids by providing an allocation of £50,000 (over two years) to each Member for this purpose, with encouragement to spend on Greener Futures initiatives should they wish.

3.    Urges consideration of the possibility of increasing this Member allocation up to £100,00 to facilitate larger but not complex community projects.

4.    Commends the efforts of the Community Link Officers (CLOs) to raise awareness of YFS in the more deprived areas but other actions may be necessary to secure successful funding for community projects in Surrey deciles one and two. The Committee regards this as a high priority