The Chair introduced the item and referred to the public submissions received from Tower Hamlets CVS and Osmani Trust.  He invited officers to respond to the submissions.

Zena Cooke, Corporate Director for Resources informed Commissioners that funding issues would be considered in the context of the Council's general disposition to support community organisations.  Responding to CVS, she advised that timescales and proposals for underspend in theme 1 of the programme will be discussed with the Mayor and Councillor Saunders in her capacity as Deputy Mayor with responsibility for the Third Sector. Following this a response would be provided.  The feedback on the complexities encountered by organisations using the on-line monitoring scheme was noted.

The Chair then invited officers to respond to the issues raised by the Osmani Trust.  Ann Sutcliffe, Service Head Corporate Property and Capital Delivery, informed Commissioners that there had been historic lease matters concerning this organisation.  Officers had continued to pursue negotiations with Osmani Trust however progress was presently paused.  Mayor Biggs noted that the organisation was presently at an impasse since it was unable to sign a lease and grant funding (under present arrangements) could not be released, without a signed up-to-date lease.

Everett Haughton, Third Sector Programme Manager then introduced the report which reported the performance of the current Mainstream Grants programme (MSG) in the period September to December 2015, the program having been initiated at the Commissioners’ Decision Making Meeting on 29 July 2015.  The report and appendices presented a range of data:

•         a breakdown of the current programme and projects

•         the issues affecting the period reported, these were categorised into a number of themes set out in section 3.5 of the report

•         an overview of performance within the each of the five themes under which the grants were issued together with RAG ratings

•         geographical analysis by Ward cluster.

Commissioners were asked to consider the report and the appendices and provide guidance on any required improvements or specific information they wish to receive in future monitoring reports.  Commissioners were also requested to approve the withdrawal of grants to projects as set out in paragraph 3.12.4 which concerned projects that not submitted progress reports and had not progressed in the following period (January to March 2016) these were recommended for funding withdrawal.

The Chair invited Councillor John Pierce, Co-opted Members and Commissioners to comment on the performance report and the following comments were made:

Councillor John Pierce indicated that GSSC had not considered the public submissions (these were tabled at the meeting) however the data provided in the performance report was welcomed. GSSC intended to engage with the data and enable the community to interrogate it to give full transparency.  The report would be considered as part of GSSC meetings.  Additionally GSSC

•         was looking for improvements in some of the reporting processes especially those concerning grants of less of less than £10,000.

•         was interested to ensure that multiple applications from organisations presenting themselves under different identities would be prevented  ...  view the full decision text for item 5.5