The Brentwood Community Fund was set up to give Brentwood’s communities the opportunity to provide local initiatives to improve the quality of life for local people living in the borough. The Community Fund of £36,300 was currently allocated within and existing 2019/20 budget, and grants of up to £4,000 were available to applicants.

The funding was open from 1 April until 27 September 2019. A summary of the applications and the officers scoring sheet is attached in Appendix B of the report.

Cllr Reed and Mrs Davies declared an interest of their association to one or more of the applicants for the fund and left the Chamber.  Cllr Mrs Tierney declared a non pecuniary interest as a trustee of Brentwood Leisure Trust.

Cllr Poppy consulted with the committee their views on Parish Councils applying for the Community Fund.  The chair asked officers to review the current guidelines around this and bring it back to the next Community and Health Committee.   

Cllr Poppy MOVED the motion and Cllr Mrs Tierney SECONDED the recommendation in the report.

A vote was taken by a show of hands and it was RESOLVED UNANIMOUSLY to:

Members were asked to Agree to fund those projects highlighted in green as outlined in Appendix B out of the Community Fund.

Reasons for Recommendation

Each application had been subject to a robust, independent and transparent scoring process to ensure fairness in the allocation of funding (Appendix C of the report).

Once reviewed the applications were scored by a panel of officers and a representative from AXIS looking at the following key priorities:

·         Evidence that the bid meets the criteria, the Council’s priorities and expected outcomes

·         Evidence that the community has been involved in the development   and implementation of the project

·         Evidence that the bid supports the promotion of volunteering and community participation

·         Evidence that the applicant has sought additional external funding or in kind value (such as the use of volunteers) for the project

·         Evidence that the project is sustainable once the Council’s contribution

has ceased.

Once the applications were scored, they were ranked by their overall score.  The recommendations by officers of the projects that met the Council’s key priorities and expected outcomes, the amount of funding recommended is attached in Appendix B of the report.

Those applications marked as green were recommended to receive funding.

Notifications would be made to all those applicants that applied. Successful applicants would also have to agree to any terms stipulated within the conditions of the grant being awarded. Successful applicants would also need to complete a self-monitoring report once their project has been completed.

Any unsuccessful applicants to the Community Fund would be offered the following support: Face to face meeting with a member of the Community Services team to review their prospective application; offered a funding training session via Brentwood Council for Voluntary Services which included tips on submitting a good funding application. Members would also be asked   to assist in this process; Organisations would also be signposted to the Open

Community on the Council’s website to look at other sources of external funding to support their project if applicable.