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RESOLVED:
 
Cabinet to :
1. 
Approve
the allocation of Community Infrastructure Grant £79,200
across the four organisations as outlined in Appendix
1.
 
2. 
Delegate
to the Head of Policy and Strategic Delivery decisions in regards
to £25,000 carried over development funding for capacity
building and training for Community Infrastructure
organisations.
 
3. 
Note the
awards of project-based grants to organisations, including those
funded through a budget that in previous years has been deployed
for one-off commissioning of youth activity by the Children and
Families Service and Healthier Hackney grants in Appendix 2.
Approval of these grants was delegated by Cabinet in January 2023
to the Head of Policy and Strategic Delivery.
 
4. 
Delegate
to the Head of Policy and Strategic Delivery decisions in regards
£20,000 to the development of advice services in the north of
the borough and £25,000 for advice services to develop a
convening role for the advice system as set out in 4.5
below
 
5. 
Approve a
grant of £40,000 to London Community Credit Union in addition
to the £40,000 set aside from last year’s grant budget,
as part of the package of support established with partner Councils
Newham and Tower Hamlets

 
REASONS FOR DECISION
 
The recommendation to launch a VCS grants programme was
agreed by Cabinet on 23 January 2023 based on the budget for
2023/234. Cabinet is asked to agree the recommended awards for the
Community Infrastructure Grants and delegated authority for
£20,000 of grant budget for the development of advice
provision in the north of the borough. This is a key decision of
the Council as it affects two or more wards and is related to
Council spend.
 
From our learning so far we know that there are much more
effective and impactful ways to invest in the voluntary and
community sector than the traditional approaches to grant making
and to commissioning. This traditional approach is transactional
and arms-length and assumes complex challenges can be addressed
through short term, separate projects and measurable
outputs.
 
The future of the grants programme is being shaped by the
Council’s experience of working with the sector during the
pandemic and Cost of Living Crisis, the knowledge we have gained
from working with our advice providers, and the change and
transformation we are trying to achieve as a Council. We do not
intend to change the objectives of the grant programme and the two
main aims are still relevant, if not more so given the
Council’s new Strategic Plan:
· 
promoting prosperity
and wellbeing with targeted, positive action when needed
· 
building strong,
cohesive communities that are part of the solution
 
Community Infrastructure
Grants
Although we stepped down our response to the pandemic our
residents and their families continue to face instability in the
context of the cost of living crisis, the continued rising
inequalities, complexity of need and limited access to preventive
help due to scarce resources. The Community Infrastructure grants
will enable the continued collaboration and facilitation of
relationships between partners across the system in Hackney. This
continues to be vital in helping to establish connections between
services to support residents and their families to access
information and help in communities across the borough.
 
Last year we awarded funding to 20 organisations for both
geographical, place-based activity as well as community focused
e.g. black-led community infrastructure. This ensured that the
Council protected a group of organisations that can be able players
in the system and can help us meet our priorities for Hackney. To
ensure that community led organisations can develop and thrive
further work will be undertaken with them to meet any development
needs that they identify in order to provide the support that their
residents need. £25,000 has been set aside for this activity
from the grants budget.
 
This year we are increasing the number of Community
Infrastructure organisations to 24 in order to extend provision of
holistic,  place-based and
person-centred, strengths-based approaches to working with
empowering residents to take an active role in supporting one
another. Over the past year we have been working with our Community
Infrastructure partners to proactively strengthen direct
relationships with the Council and health services to improve
access to the services and support that residents they are working
with need.
 
The two system convenors working in Policy and Strategic
Delivery have been out in communities engaging with these partners
and key services on the ground and are able to use their knowledge
of direct work with residents to test and learn about new ways of
working together with community infrastructure organisations, food
banks, advice providers, Resident Participation, Children and
Family Hubs, Neighbourhoods, Kings Park Moving Together, Public
Health and Adult Social Care. Continuing to build on these
relationships and acting in an enabling role to broker
relationships and enable shared learning across boundaries is
helping to break down barriers between services and communities.
This is helping to unlock potential and resources to strengthen
preventative and holistic approaches on the ground, particularly
for the residents and communities whose lack of trust in the state
can alienate them from support until things get worse and
interventions are more expensive and less effective.
 
The assessment process had two stages and involved officers
from the Policy and Strategic Delivery Team as well as colleagues
from Public Health, Children’s and Education, Adult Social
Care and the VCS. An initial application enabled organisations to
articulate if and how they worked with residents to support them in
ways that went beyond their core service and mission. The
assessment focused on key qualities and characteristics of
organisations such as reach and expertise working with marginalised
communities and a track record of collaboration and partnership,
reflecting what is needed to be a participant in a healthy system.
Evidence was presented that showed how irrespective of the
organisations’ focus and mission they understood the
importance of working with the whole person and their families in
order to provide the support that was needed.
 
From the 20 organisations that submitted an application,
seven organisations were selected by a group of assessors at a
panel meeting to be interviewed so that further information on the
application and their case studies could be gathered. A second
panel then considered all of the information submitted and gathered
by interview to make final recommendations for awards.
 
In regards to awards for Community Infrastructure
organisations, rather than allocate amounts just according to the
merits of each application, the Council brought a collaborative
approach to how to distribute the available funding in discussion
with the organisations that were successful last year. This has
ensured that the funding allocated can respond to the individual
circumstances and aspirations of the organisation and their
approach to delivery e.g. organisational capacity, their existing
networks and partnerships, training needs etc.
 
Over the past year we have been learning how our funding is
enabling Community Infrastructure organisations to learn, adapt and
grow so that learning becomes part of the core way that we work
together. We have learnt that spending time with organisations
helps us to gain a more rounded view of what their services do,
what their value is and what good looks like. By adopting this
‘shared’ approach to evaluation we are also changing
the power dynamics that currently inhibit effective partnership
working.
 
This takes time, beyond the time frames of traditional
grant making and the Community Infrastructure grants are due to run
until 2025. Although the ecosystem of VCS support will not be fully
protected by this investment it is helping to provide a range of
organisations that can work with and protect some of our most
vulnerable residents and build an evidence base to attract further
statutory and external funding.
 
Our partner organisations are helping to shape the funding
approach as collaborators in our own learning. Colleagues from
across the Council have volunteered to take on the role of a
Relational Lead.  These officers
are  actively engaged with these
organisations and are helping the Council to learn about strengths
based transformation in communities and for community organisations
to learn about how the Council works.
 
Project based grants including Children
and Young People’s and Healthier Hackney grants
Applications for project grants opened on 6 February 2023
and closed on 27 March 2023. A total of 155 eligible applications
across Project Grants, Children and Young People’s Grants,
and Community Chest Grants were received. Applicants were supported
via information sessions delivered virtually by the Grants Team as
well as via HCVS and were also able to access free application
support through HCVS and ELBA. All grants were up to 12 months in
duration. Community Chest grants were awarded up to the value of
£10,000, Project Grants up to the value of £20,000 and
Children & Young People’s grants up to the value of
£10,000.
 
Applications were screened for eligibility and due
diligence checks were undertaken by the Grants Team. They were then
assessed by pairs/small groups of assessors composed of LB Hackney
officers and volunteers from the VCS. Assessments were all
conducted via an online portal on our grants management system,
Blackbaud Grant Making. Assessor
scores, comments, and recommendations were moderated via an initial
meeting with a representative of the Grants Team, before being
discussed at a Grants Panel which included all Assessors. Three
separate panels were held for the three grant schemes.
 
A
total of 45 grants were awarded. Of these 19 are for the Children
and Young People’s Grant (including 4 Healthier Hackney), and
19 are for Project Grants (including 9 Healthier Hackney). Seven
Community Chest grants were awarded. We have been able to fund a
range of organisations who we have not worked with before, and are
reaching a number of user-led grassroots groups. The
recommendations were signed off by the Head of Policy &
Strategic Delivery as agreed by Cabinet in January 2023.
 
Advice Grants
In January 2023 Cabinet approved the award of advice grants
to 19 partners following an open application process. Two of the
previously funded advice providers in the north of the borough did
not apply for a grant and as there were no other applications from
this area of the borough there is subsequently a geographical gap
in Council funded provision.
 
Recognising the gap in Council funded advice services it is
proposed that some interim annual funding is used to support
sufficient coverage in the  north of the
borough. It is proposed to use up to £20,000 of the remaining
£77,826 2023/24 advice budget to achieve this with authority
to spend delegated to the Head of Policy and Strategic
Delivery.
 
As the system of advice is developed by the Council funded
partners there is a need to provide additional capacity that
enables the partners to create and utilise spaces for learning and
problem-solving that build on relationships and ways of working
established through the pandemic and further strengthen
relationships of trust and shared purpose between advice partners
working directly to support residents. The capacity will bring
together advice partners and other organisations within the
Community Partnerships Network to facilitate conversations and
share knowledge and resources to embed ways of working that
effectively improve outcomes for residents, helping to develop an
approach to prevention and early help across the lifecourse to reduce escalation of harm and need.
It is proposed that £25,000 of the advice budget is set aside
to achieve this with authority to spend delegated to the Head of
Policy and Strategic Delivery.
 
London Community Credit Union
(LCCU)
LCCU has in previous years received a £40,000
Specialist grant from the grants programme. In March 2022, LCCU
arranged a meeting with Finance Directors from Hackney, Newham and
Tower Hamlets to discuss their financial pressures caused as a
result of the pandemic. During the meeting and in subsequent
papers, LCCU presented the emergency financial pressure it faces as
a result of the pandemic and the related impact on its loans,
interest income and bad debt provisions. The organisation has had
significant financial losses, identifying the pandemic as the
primary reason for their challenging year, citing the
following:
· 
Not able to increase
its membership,
· 
Increased loan loss
provisions
· 
Reduced volume of loan
applications,
· 
Some technology issues
around the Credit Union Current Account (CUCA)
 
In response to these challenges LCCU has sought support
from the three boroughs it operates in, Tower Hamlets, Newham and
Hackney. Discussion between the three boroughs concluded that given
the role of credit unions, the financial pressures on residents
during the Cost of Living Crisis and that no community based
alternatives are available, the loss of the LCCU at this time
should be avoided. Following lengthy negotiations all three
boroughs have now agreed to provide financial assistance to LCCU
and in collective agreement are providing financial support
totalling £240,000 (£80,000 each). Cabinet is being
asked to agree to the release of £80,000 which was set aside
from the Specialist grant that was not released to LCCU in 2022/23
and 2023/24, when the financial position and future of the
organisation became unclear.
 
DETAILS OF ALTERNATIVE OPTIONS CONSIDERED AND
REJECTED
 
Given the budgetary pressures facing the Council the future
of the VCS Grants Programme is regularly reviewed. However
consideration has been given to the reductions in public spending
through welfare cuts and reduced grants to local government which
can lead to increased demands upon the VCS. The unique position of
the VCS to respond to the needs of the most vulnerable and
disadvantaged residents as well as its ability to deliver added
value e.g. through inward investment and volunteering necessitates
a grant programme that ensures that the sector can continue to
thrive and build resilience to mitigate the impacts of the pandemic
and in the face of further budget reductions.
 
Whilst commissioning helps to support the VCS, the
investment through the Council’s grants programme helps to
maintain a thriving third sector and a wide range of suppliers.
Funding the sector through grants ensures that it can identify new
needs and new ideas and innovate and test new solutions. It enables
added value activity that complements direct or procured service
delivery and can fund open universal activity. The sector is also
able to use grant funding to respond to specific challenges in
regards to community cohesion by providing grassroots community
based activity that builds cohesion and community action and the
support that is needed by our most disadvantaged and vulnerable
residents.