Agenda item

To receive a report of the Chief Grants Officer.

The Committee received a report which provided Members with statistical analysis of the Working with Londoners programmes that were launched in July 2008 and looked at the 2,230 application received between the launch date and 31^st March 2013.

Officers informed Members that the success rate for applications had remained steady since 2008 and the average annual success rate of applications received was 43%, which was considered realtively high in the sector. The break-down of funding per borough was also listed and it was observed that there were come boroughs that the Trust was not reaching and there were also smaller organisations which did not meet the Trusts’ eligibility criteria.

Members and officers discussed how the Trust could be more strategic in its grant giving to smaller organisations going forward, and it was advised that Trust’s work going forward in this area would be presented to the Committee at its February 2014 meeting. The Chairman remarked that this was a fascinating and useful report.

Officers felt that the promotion of the Investing in Londoners programmes would proactively reach out to boroughs which had received less funding in the past.

The Deputy Chairman remarked that there was a lack of knowledge in some boroughs of the work of the Trust. It was the case that the Chief Grants Officer would continue to follow up with relevant contacts established by Members at events when the opportunity arose, such as Members of Parliament in deprived boroughs.

Members sought clarity over how the borough benefit of grants to boroughs had been presented and analysed (Table 1, pg. 191). Officers advised that the grant amount awards were ranked against their relative position of indices of multiple deprivation. However they cautioned that, due to the quality of the data provided by applicants the information presented in Table 1 was an approximate measure, as grants which had benefited multiple boroughs had not been included.