Agenda item

Report of the Chief Grants Officer.

The Chief Grants Officer introduced a progress report on social investment activity within the Corporation, and Members noted that the Social Investment Advisor would be reducing her hours in order to undertake a new role with the Market Development Foundation. With regard to expanding the Membership of the Board, a skills matrix was attached for Members’ comments, and the Town Clerk undertook to circulate the co-option protocol for the Financial, Property and Social Investment Boards.

With regard to the ‘Transition Fund’, the Chief Grants Officer reported that the £1m per annum programme had been approved by the City Bridge Trust Committee in July, to be launched later in 2014. Officers were currently working on detailed assessment criteria and it was hoped that some of the organisations funded through the programme would become investment opportunities for the Social Investment Fund in the future. Members noted that knowledge sharing was a key aspect of the programme, and closer work on the continuum and transition between organisations in receipt of grant funding and those suitable for social investment was pioneering in the market.

RESOLVED – That:

(a)  The report be noted;

(b)  The proposed skills audit be approved;

(c)  The number of Board meetings in 2015 be reduced from 6 to 4; and

(d)  The co-option protocol for Social Investment Board be circulated.