 Okay I can confirm that we are now live. Thank you. Thank you Liam. Good morning members, officers and members of the public for viewing the live stream of this meeting. Welcome to the meeting of the Grants of Variety Committee today, Friday 20th of November. Just a quick apology for starting late. I think we had a bit of a technical issue up front so we're here now. My name is Councillor Joseph Hales and I'm the Chair of the Grants of Variety Committee. For the information members of the public, our role as a committee is to consider and make recommendations to the lead cabinet member for finance, that's the gentleman with the beard, Councillor John Williams, on applications made under the council's grant schemes. Councillor Williams then makes his decision taking the account of our recommendations. Members, please can you remember to mute your microphones and this is called to speak when you'll need to unmute them, otherwise we will look daft as normal. Aaron, I come over to you please for agenda item number one, which is apologies. Thank you, Chair. We've had apologies from Councillor Claire Delta-Fields and although not necessarily a standing member of the committee, Councillor Bill Handley. Thank you very much. So the rest of us are here. Declarations of interest, members. Aaron, would you do the honours please? Sorry, we've moved on to declarations of interest have we? Yeah. Do any members have any declarations in relation to any item of business on this agenda to declare? No. Well on one I'm just going to take advice probably for Sue and myself, if you don't mind. So we're both members of mobile warden schemes as trustees. So whilst this is finance and we're potentially not necessarily the recipient of this money, but there's the potential perhaps in the future. So whilst it's non-becuing me, I would say wouldn't you, Sue? Yes, indeed. Would you make a note of that for us please, Aaron? Of course. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Agenda item number three, members. I'll just go through the usual. This is on page five of your agenda. No, thank you, pardon. Page three of your agenda. Page one of your agenda. Get it righteous. I'll just go through the usual. Page one, page two, excuse me, and page three. All square. Thank you very much indeed. If you could just make a note of that there, that was unanimous please. Thank you. Okey-doke. Agenda item number four, that's what confused me. My notes have gone awry. Right. Agenda item number four, which is the expansion of the mobile warden scheme underspend. For this item, I'd like to call upon the officer leading it, which is Leslie McFarland. Leslie, would you be able to brief us please and introduce this subject? Okay, yes. Thank you, Chair. Following the mobile warden scheme procurement exercise earlier this year, we've been left with a total underspend of £115,766. Given that there's no significant uplift in grant funding for the existing schemes, or there hasn't been for many years, and given that we're in the midst of a global pandemic requiring older members of society to stay home and self-isolate, there is an argument to give greater support to these existing schemes and to expand them if they so wish. We also need to consider how we continue to financially support those new schemes that we procured this year from September 2022 to March 2024 to bring their funding in line with the current funding cycle. So currently, there's no allocation of funds to support them during this period at the moment. The options are there before you, but really just to take that, I think that there are two options as far as I see, taking that total amount, dividing it by three. But remember, we've already got an existing budget of 27k per year allocated, so we could add that, we would add that. That gives quite a substantial uplift to existing schemes beginning April 2021, or we top slice it and we give a portion of that, or we set aside a portion of that for these newly procured schemes to apply to from October 2022 and use the remaining funds then for the existing on new schemes, and that still gives them a lot to apply into. So really, it's over to you. Okay, members, comments please. We basically have two options. We have option one, option two. As you can see from page six of the agenda, option one is essentially use the 115,000 across the three years, with the, in addition to the 27, as Leslie rightly said. Option two is the top slice where we protect both, I think which is about the sum of it. We protect the existing schemes and we also help with the top up of the slight shortfall of the new schemes, as already mentioned. Sue. I am very much in favour of item two, or option two, because I feel that there is so much happening that we can't predict in the future. We want to encourage more mobile schemes and to have a little leeway available to us to support those schemes is really good. Hang on while I answer that and tell it to go away. And I really feel that this would give us the opportunity to be able to encourage and support through whatever comes in the future and we really don't know what's coming in the future. Thank you, so I thoroughly agree. Just as a quick before I go to anybody else, in Leslie's paper section 14, Leslie lays it out there for us with regards to how the council can provide a future funding, if you like, and the shortfalls and the pitfalls, so not shortfalls, the pitfalls as Sue has rightly highlighted of future finances and what have you from government. So we do have to be a bit careful, I suppose. Anybody else? Peter, Clare? Yes. Yes, please. Pete, yeah. I do agree with Sue that Councillor Ellington that for me, if I look at option two, there are two aspects. One is being able to engage with parishes and say that we've made provision for these future years is quite powerful, provided that Councilor Williams is happy with that approach. I would personally prefer that because it allows us to go to expand the programme, to be able to go to parishes and say we've created what we believe is a sustainable fund going forward right through to March 2024. And I think that's a very positive message for the communities, provided John Councilor Williams doesn't see any issues, any financial issues with doing that. I believe it's pretty transparent as Leslie has laid out. So I would agree with Sue that I support option two. Councillor Thompson? Yeah, that would be my choice as well. I just wanted to ask a question under the 40,000 to part subsidise the 10 new schemes, that sentence there. Do we have any idea of how we might subsidise the new schemes? Do we feel that the new schemes are not sufficiently funded at the moment? Or do we think the new schemes need reassurance or they might need more money in the future? Just talk me through that sentence. I think we don't, the current model is that they apply for funding from various different sources and each scheme has a different pool of funding to draw from. But given the economic outlook, again, nothing is certain. So I think that there isn't enough at the moment to sustain them. So I think that this additional money would give security to those new schemes. So one of the barriers to uptake from the new schemes or one not barriers, but one of the concerns when we've been talking to parishes about taking on these schemes was the ongoing funding. So I think if we can go back to them and say, actually, we have considered how we're going to fund or how we will support you, you know, going forward, I think we'll give them that reassurance that they need at the moment. Okay, that's helpful. And also another question concerning additional schemes where when we're reporting on the mobile warden schemes in our parish council reports, where a village to come forward saying I would like now to join in, is there sufficient funding for an 11th new scheme? Yes, there is. So this £115,000, which when it's divided up over the three years, even if you take the £40,000 and top slice that off, if a scheme came forwards now, we would have enough funding to part fund them, not to fully fund them within the procurement as we have done with the procured exercises. So any parishes coming forward that want funding from this new, you know, going forward from April 2021 would be part funded the same as all the existing schemes. Okay. Joseph, might I have a final question, please? Absolutely. So then what we're saying is that in March 2024, that will be a crunch time because what we're trying to do is to help existing and new schemes to come together so that in 2024, we'd be looking at the the next tranche of funding for all of those schemes. So I think, correct me if I'm wrong, what we're saying is we're now giving you three years funding to 2024. And what happens after that, we just don't know. Yep. Yep. And again, I think that's come sort of 2020 at the end of 2022 when they're in their final year of funding. I think that's when we need to start thinking about the budgeting for from 2020 to 2024. Okay. Thanks. Yep. All right. Thanks, Chairman. I'm happy with that and very happy to support option two. Thank you very much. I'm in complete agreement with all members and I'd just like to thank Lesley for the additional work that we loaded onto her shoulders to bring this forward again. So thank you there, Lesley. John, do you have anything to say? Are you happy for the recommendation for option two from us? No, I'm happy with the recommendation and I'd also like to thank Lesley for the work she's put into this and obviously the work will continue as well because obviously the new groups will need a lot of support and we might even, this might even encourage some more people to come forward. I'm pleased that we can underpin the schemes until 2024 and clearly that will be in in a new administration. So it will be for, it will be post the election in 2022. So whoever wins that, that I hope they will take it on board and continue to run with it. But at least it gives people some certainty now as to going forward for the next four years. Great, thanks. I think, well actually it's been going pretty well, so then Lesley, they had a training session didn't we, for some of the new bots for the part of our process. We've asked people to be in line with all the different qualifications, safeguarding, etc, etc. It was a safeguarding and a touch on MCA in Dole's. What day was it? Yesterday? Wednesday? Wednesday, I remember now. It's been a long week. Sorry, and there would have been safeguarding, first day training next week, but we've had to postpone that. But just to let members know that we've, the process has started. So it's going pretty well I think so far at the moment, so that's great. Okay, so I'm to take it that everybody said in their questions that we're looking at option two will be our recommendation to lead finance. Can I just put your hand up if you agree please? Thank you very much. That's you know, that's the recommendation is option two and John's the exception of that. That's great. In that case. Chairman could I ask a question please? Yes. On page six under details, Leslie, your provision of online workshops for new schemes will be offered by way of additional support. Please could we be given warning of those workshops? Again, yeah, we're planning those towards the end of that. So those will be for the newly procured schemes. Yeah. And it will be supporting them in how they apply for funding going forward. So that will be towards the end of that funding cycle, that initial funding cycle. Okay, so you'll probably be looking at about April 2022. So if there's any in the near future, if there's any information going out about the schemes, could we be copied into it? Because we sometimes get asked questions and okay, we can talk knowledgeably about the grants and why we've set it up. But any details, it would be helpful. Thanks. Good point. Right then. I think members, this was a one agenda item only. Aaron, you were going to say, were you going to say something? No, sorry, I have to say it wrong. Right, well in that case, if there's no other business guys, it's a one agenda item only. Oh Leslie. I just wanted to add that we're about to release a big comms piece on the new schemes as well. So towards the end of next week. So the new funding of the existing schemes funding opens on the 30th of November. So that's next Friday. And we're going to tie that in with where we are with the newly procured schemes. So all those newly procured schemes are about to fly, basically. So from December, we will have probably out of the all the newly procured schemes, most of them will be up and running by December, with a few delayed until January just because of recruitment difficulties recruiting. But I think it's great news. In our business plan, I think we had written three new schemes by the end of the financial year. But we've absolutely blown that out of the water and we've got a lot more set up. So I think that's something that we can really shout about. Yeah, well done. That's great. Start yelling then. Keep an eye out for the comms anyway. Chairman, could I thank the lead member finance for providing the money for it? Yeah. Well, don't thank him too much because we want to bleed him some more a little bit to make sure we got enough. So we've got to keep him on the bottle, right? We've got to get some money out of county. Yeah, that'll be a good one. Yeah, that'll be our next task. We're going to pin them down, shall we? Excellent. Okay, gang, thank you very much indeed for all the members of public. Hope that went well for you. Certainly did for us. Next meeting is on the 27th of November, 10 a.m., that will be the zero carbon process and applications as already published. See you then. Thank you very much indeed. Now, could you do the feed for me? Thanks, Aaron. Thanks,