Mr Keith Burns, Service Manager, Ageing Well Commissioning presented his report on the Ageing Well small grants fund. He said the fund dealt with social isolation and loneliness among older people. He said that whilst it had been agreed for this fund to be part of the council-wide VCS Grants Programme which comes into effect on the 1^st October 2019, it had been decided to bring this grant decision to the Scrutiny Sub-Committee and the Determination Sub-Committee, in order to make the fund available for activities that are to be held in the summer of 2019.

Mr Burns stated the fund was to the value of £25,000 and would be seeking applications from small organisations within the community. He referred Members to the Annual Report of 2017/18 appended at Appendix A and the draft application form appended at Appendix B.

In response to questions from Members the following was noted:

·         Small amounts of money are released for social activities such as indoor bowling, lunches, purchasing of new equipment, religious events like Eid parties, Easter parties and Christmas events.

o   ACTION: Service to provide a list of the organisations that have benefited from this fund, for the sake of transparency prior to the Grants Determination Sub-Committee of 6^th March 2019.

·         In reference to Page 33 and the map provided members enquired why there were a number of wards that were not represented or in receipt of the small grant. The sub-committee asked what had been done to address this anomaly. Mr Burns confirmed that in some parts of the borough the response had been low. He said he hoped more organisations would be reached via the CVS distribution list and the new Health and Wellbeing localities running in the borough.

·         In reference to the diagram at 3.9 of the annual report, members asked why the LGBT community made a smaller proportion of beneficiaries for the fund. Mr Burns said that the evaluation was based on those who had self-identified as LGBT and therefore there could be some under reporting. Mr Burns said whilst there was no specific plans to target this group the service would through the CVS work with LGBT providers to make them aware of the opportunity of accessing the fund.

Members of the Sub-Committee RESOLVED to AGREE and ENDORSE the recommendations to the Grants Determination Sub-Committee to:

1.    Approve the process for inviting applications for the Ageing Well Small Grants fund 2019/10.

2.    Note the availability of funding for the proposal.

3.    Agree the process for awarding the grant funding, and subsequent monitoring arrangements.

4.    Agree to delegate responsibility for approving the awards for grants to the Joint Director of Integrated Commissioning.