Content

Salford City Council - Record of Decision (Cabinet)
 
I Paul Dennett, City Mayor, in
exercise of the powers contained within the City Council
Constitution do hereby
approve:
 

The acceptance of the grant funding
from Arts Council England.
Authorises the City Solicitor to
sign and seal all necessary documents to give effect to this
decision.

 
The Reasons
are:

Acceptance of the grant from Arts Council
England (through Bolton MBC) needs to be done in line with the
appropriate City Council governance authorisation. The acceptance
of grants is currently not expressly delegated by the City Mayor
and in this case, the grant award is a Key Decision, as it exceeds
£350,000.

 

Acceptance of the grant funding is essential
to enable the delivery of MAPAS in Salford schools.
Options considered
and rejected were:
None
Assessment of
Risk:
Low – in terms of accepting the grant
conditions.
The source of
funding is:
Arts Council England.
Legal Advice
obtained:
Lauren Armstrong
Solicitor, Commercial Team @ Legal and Democratic Services
Based on the partnership agreement as long as
SCC ensures SCL will be contractually responsible for fulfilling
SCC's obligations under the agreement, the Partnership Agreement
could be accepted by SCC. Similar arrangements have been in
place since 2012 when MAPAS transferred to SCL. The funds should be
passported to SCL through a conditional funding agreement making it
clear that the provision of these funds are subject to the same
conditions entered into by SCC. Clause 14.4 specifically states any
sub-contractor appointment must be in writing and include an
obligation to comply with the Partnership Agreement but that SCC
would remain at fault for any SCL breach.
 
(1) The agreement essentially onward funds
their Arts Council England grant to SCC and the other GM
authorities (plus One Education) for the 'agreed activity' which
has been prescribed by the Arts Council in their grant offer letter
and its funding agreement (I've not seen either of these but I
assume SCC/SCL know what the permitted activities are, and also
noting page 25 include a maximum threshold % of grant being used on
back office costs). However the attachment seems incomplete in
places and still has a track change comment from Chloe Murphy
(solicitor at Bolton). E.g. Schedule 1 "Funding Agreement" has
square brackets saying it is to be inserted, with a comment saying
it has been included in the cover email for review (I don't have a
copy of this so I haven't seen the Arts Council funding
agreement).
(2) Funding for Salford is £365,050 and
the capital is £119,919 (total £484,969). 3% of the GM
total grant is set aside as 'leadership and management fee', which
can be adjusted from time to time by Bolton. This is taken by
Bolton prior to distribution of the grant, so it wouldn't be an
additional cost to SCC, but means that in future years the actual
grant received is reduced if the fee is increased.
 
 (3) Clause 5 sets out the 'Partner'
obligations. Just to confirm that SCC is the signing party and the
Partner for the purposes of the agreement. Therefore all
obligations/liabilities owed by Partners to Bolton under the
agreement will apply to SCC rather than SCL. Therefore it should
have appropriate arrangements in place with SCL when passporting
the funding to ensure that if SCL put SCC in breach of the
Partnership Agreement (and Funding Agreement), that SCL may be
required to remedy (e.g. Repay the grant, indemnify). 
 
 (4) The agreement is a conditional grant
funding agreement, and Bolton has given itself the usual remedy of
clawback in the event of breach (e.g. SCL did not use the money for
permitted activities), or in certain events such as ACE suspends
payment of the grant. SCC is also required to give Bolton a
general, indemnity in the event that Bolton suffers a loss due to
SCC being in breach of the Agreement or through its execution of
the Agreed Activity. The indemnity is capped at the amount of
payments SCC has received under the agreement.
 
 (5) SCC will also be subject to
monitoring provisions (appendix 1 and 2 set out required data sets)
which it will be reliant upon SCL to support on, as well as fairly
usual financial management provisions (e.g. Keep documents for 7
years, maintain an capital asset register of any items funded with
the capital grant. There are also the usual confidentiality
provisions, branding etc, and an obligation for the parties to
assist each other in the event that a Freedom of Information
request is received. Again SCC needs to ensure SCL will
comply/support with these.
 
 (6) SCC must obtain SCL's consent before
sub-contracting its obligations under the agreement (and as above
we need SCL to agree in writing to comply with the Partnership
Agreement). 
 
(7)
SCC is required to comply with the terms of the Data Protection
Schedule. Appendix 3 states that SCC is acting as a data processor
(therefore SCL would be its sub-processor). We would need SCL to
comply with all Data Protection requirements, as well as clause
17.9 (dealing with personal data at the end of the
Partnership)
 
Financial Advice
obtained:
David R Mills – Resources and Transformation            
Funding for Salford for 2024/25 is
£365,050 and the capital award is £119,919 (total
£484,969). 3% of the GM total grant is set aside as
'leadership and management fee', which can be adjusted from time to
time by Bolton. This is taken by Bolton prior to distribution of
the grant, so it wouldn't be an additional cost to SCC, but means
that in future years the actual grant received is reduced if the
fee is increased.
This funding is passed through to SCL to
operate the service and there is no cost to the City Council.
 Procurement Advice obtained:
N/A
HR Advice
obtained:
N/A
Climate Change
Advice obtained:
N/A
The following
documents have been used to assist the decision process:
N/A
 
Contact
Officer:      Stephen
Hassall (SCL)                  
Telephone number: 07711454713
 
(Please delete from the list below any which
are not relevant).
The
appropriate scrutiny to call-in the decision is the Overview and
Scrutiny Board.                    
 
Signed:        Paul Dennett                     
  Dated:  16.12.24                                      
.
                       
City Mayor
 
 
This decision was published on 17.12.24                                            
This decision will come in force at 4.00 p.m. on
24.12.24                   
                              
unless it is called-in in
accordance with the Decision Making Process Rules.