Minutes:
The Assistant Director, Commissioning, Performance and Transformation provided a verbal update to Members on the current position relating to Voluntary Sector Funding.
It was stated that a series of Workshops had been held during March and April, followed by further Workshops held in June, and had been attended by 50 to 60 people from various organisations, including Police, Fire Brigade, Health Organisations and schools as well as Voluntary, Community and Social Enterprise organisations currently not operating in Darlington and Members of the Darlington Organisations Together network.
Following the Workshops two focus areas had been identified
namely, Social Isolation for Adults and Support for Vulnerable
Families with Children. A series of
community based projects is to be established across these two
focus areas which will run as pilots for 18 months from September
2019. The projects will link with the
Mutual Gain work currently being undertaken by Police colleagues as
well as NRF proposals and work being undertaken within GP
Practices.
It
was reported that there had previously been no appetite to apply
for one-off funding or non-recurrent funding as it was a
time-consuming exercise. Members were
also advised that work was ongoing with Community Groups to have
sustainability plans in place as there is no longer a guarantee of
statutory funding.
The
community based projects are to be considered for short term
voluntary sector funding and it was envisaged that County Durham
Community Fund would be linked to the next stage of the process
thereby opening another avenue of funding
opportunities. It was hoped that all
Groups would become self-funding in the future.
Members were pleased with the progress being made around Voluntary Sector Funding and look forward to receiving details of projects at a future meeting.
Discussion ensued on the need to ensure the money was spent correctly and the need for Scrutiny Committee to monitor the process. The Assistant Director advised that a further report would be provided before the end of the year to give feedback to Members and advise of the list of projects to work on.
RESOLVED – (a) That the Assistant Director, Commissioning, Performance and Transformation be thanked for providing an update on Voluntary Sector Funding.
(b) That a report be submitted to a future meeting of this Scrutiny Committee providing further progress.