(a)  To confirm budgets and promote a debate on the various processes utilised to affect spending.

(b)  To appoint Members to sit on a Task and Finish Group to agree priorities for the remainder of the municipal year.  This process should be completed before the next Constituency Committee meeting scheduled to be held on 16 December 2013.

A presentation will be made on this item.

The Constituency Manager, made a presentation to the Committee on the Constituency Committee budget and financial protocols.  The Committee had a budget of £50,000 for 2013/14.  A recently announced ‘Love Wirral’ grant of £10,000 had been allocated to the Wirral South Constituency footprint.  Each of the Borough’s four constituency areas had been allocated this amount of funding which local groups could apply for to help them bring to life projects that aimed to spruce up a particular area, encouraging others to take pride in how their community looked and to show a commitment to keeping things clean and tidy.  The Constituency Manager reported that funding applications could be made via the Council website

(https://wirral.firmstep.com/default.aspx/RenderForm/?F.Name=JTeR5nF7Hsr&HideToolbar=1) form the 28 of October 2013.  It was intended that there would be a public voting process on each one.  Applications would close at noon on 6 December 2013.

A member of the public informed that she had been campaigning for a grit bin in her local area for five years.  As a Group had not been formed in respect of her campaign and she did not have a computer she was aware that she would not be able to access this funding. 

Another member of the public asked about individual requests for funding.  She informed that she lived on a bend on Poulton Road and vehicles had crashed into her fence six times.  Consequently, she now considered it to be unsafe to sit in her garden.

Members considered that the timescale for applying for a Love Wirral grant was too short, applications for grants should not be restricted to organised groups, hard copy applications should be accepted as well as online ones and they objected to a public voting system as they were of the view that it would be widely open to abuse.  They proposed that funding applications for the Wirral South Constituency area be collated and presented to the Committee for consideration and decision.  The Constituency Manager informed that the decision on this had already been taken by the Cabinet Member - Environment and Sustainability under delegated authority.

The Assistant Chief Executive was in attendance at the meeting.  He felt that further information was needed and agreed to report the comments Members and the public had made in respect of the arrangements made in respect of this initiative to the Chief Executive.  They would also discuss the possibility of rolling this funding, if it was not spent, over into the next financial year.  The Assistant Chief Executive also outlined three access points to attract funding for a grit bin.

The Committee noted that a further £25,000 would be made available from Public Health funding.  How this money would be distributed would be a decision for the Committee and recommendations from the Task and Finish Group would come back to the Committee in February, 2014.  The Constituency Manager suggested that a Small Grants Fund and a Problem Solving Fund could be established.

In respect of the Small Grants Fund, the process would be agreed by the Committee at its meeting on 16 December, 2013 and decisions on the awarding of grants would be made at its meeting on 26 February, 2014.

In respect of the Problem Solving Fund, the Committee could devolve a small budget to the ‘Priorities and Spend Task and Finish Group’, recommendations would be made via the Constituency Manager and spend agreed would be reported for information to each Constituency Committee.  This would ensure a quick response to be made to neighbourhood issues and test innovative responses.

RESOLVED: That

(1)  the contents of the presentation be noted; and

(2)  a Sub-Committee be established (Members names to be supplied) to develop a spending framework against which to allocate total, allocated budget for 2013/14.