Following the recent approval of the further revenue grants report, the elected members sub group who were tasked with overseeing the new scheme is to be re-convened to undertake a ‘lessons learnt’ look at the whole process. This was one of the major outcomes of the Education Children, Families Committee’s February meeting who expressed concerns about how the grants process had been managed.

On the grant recommendations the report was virtually unchanged with the exception of the creation of a fund to support the establishment of breakfast clubs in disadvantaged areas. For those groups who had been allocated what they had received previously, there was a further sting in the tail with an additional 5% cut across all those groups.

The ‘commissioning’ of some youth work provision was also been put back to April 2017 creating a chance to develop a genuine co-produced commissioning strategy in the intervening months. In the meantime groups who were granted contracts on reduced funding levels until September 2016, it remains unclear as to what happens in the 6 month gap up until the start of the new commissioning period of April 2017.

The LAYC Chairs & Managers Group have written to request a place on the Elected Members Review Sub-Group as they are keen to contribute to this review so that groups don’t have to go through such a difficult process again.

The next issue for those who have received grants offers is to agree ‘funding agreements’. LAYC has been working with the Chairs/Managers to see if a set of ‘ground rules’ could be agreed in advance to ensure a more equatable approach is adopted and applied consistently.

The revenue grants report 2016-19 can be found on LAYC’s home page alongside the Small Grants Re-port which was approved at the March committee and to which LAYC had a deputation.