Purpose

The purpose of this report is to establish a comprehensive delivery plan for the national Crisis and Resilience Fund monies distributed to Thanet District Council (CRF).

Decision

Cabinet agreed the following, to:

1. Approve the adoption of the ‘Phased hybrid model’ (Option 3) to manage the Crisis and Resilience Fund over its three-year lifecycle;
2. Note that by approving Option 3;

The budget is as follows:

For Year 1

Delivery partners - £181,000

ColdBusters - £181,000

CRF Community coordination - £60,000;

Administrative costs - £30,000

Total - £452,000

For both Year 2 and 3 we anticipate:

ColdBusters - £292,000

CRF Community coordination -£100,000

Administrative costs - £60,000

Total - £452,000;

1. Delegate authority to the Head of Housing and Planning to make minor amendments to the proposed allocation of funding, in consultation with the Cabinet member for housing, if any questions arise during the delivery phase of the scheme.

Reasons for the decision

The primary reasons for this decision include:

Thanet District Council must establish a comprehensive delivery plan for the newly introduced national Crisis and Resilience Fund (CRF). Kent County Council (KCC) holds the main part of the fund, 20% of KCC total funds have been disturbed to district councils, of which Thanet for Year 1 has received £451,874.71.

Four options have been considered for how Thanet District Council can deliver the funding. Senior officers of the Council have debated these and option 3 is the recommended delivery model. The full options (for transparency) are set out in the report.

Alternative options considered

Reject the funds from KCC - this is not recommended given the acute need that exists in Thanet and the proven ability of the Council and its funding partners to deliver schemes such as the Household Support Fund and do tremendous good with it.

Full partner delivery - While this model can be implemented more quickly, adopting it significantly reduces Thanet District Council’s direct control over spend priorities. There is a specific risk that delivery partners may default to prioritising social housing tenants as they get a higher percentage of the funds making the fund difficult to access for private renters or residents in the private sector. This would leave the Council open to scrutiny and issues with the funding if this approach was adopted for three years. It may also place an administrative strain on delivery partners for whom this burden will be higher.

Full direct Council delivery - While there are a number of positive attributes to this option, such as enabling the Council to align its distribution with the district’s deep pockets of deprivation and unlocking the Coldbusters scheme outlined above, the Council would not have a full year to deliver this funding in Year 1 (with funding needing to be spent by 31st March 2027). There is a high administrative and data-tracking burden for this scheme though an administrative role would be able to absorb this. Following on from this it would also require immediate, rapid recruitment (ECFs, internal approvals and potentially notice periods to be worked etc) within a tight operational window for the first part of Year 1. This would make it very difficult to deliver all funds in Year 1. Failure to do so could limit the amount of funding the Council receives for year 2 and 3 delivery.

Split funding model - While this spreads the risk and enables the Council to work with delivery partners still, splitting the budget dilutes the scaling power of the total fund.

Increase crisis grants and reduce the ColdBusters focus - This would create significant overlap with the huge countywide crisis scheme already being managed by KCC, making it an inefficient use of Thanet’s local fund compared to the Cold Busters scheme which builds long-term household resilience and supports those uniquely in crisis. This option is not recommended.