Agenda item

Question time with the Cabinet Member for Safer Croydon and Communities, Councillor Hamida Ali.

The Committee considered a report together with a presentation delivered at the meeting from the Cabinet Member for Safer Croydon & Communities, Councillor Hamida Ali, which provided an overview of the key activities within the Safer Croydon & Communities portfolio over the past year.

A copy of the presentation can be found at the following link:-

https://democracy.croydon.gov.uk/documents/s21167/Cabinet%20Member%20for%20Safer%20Croydon%20Communities%20-%20Presentation.pdf

Following the presentation the Committee was given the opportunity to question the Cabinet Member. The first question concerned the grants awarded to community and voluntary groups and whether they were audited to ensure that the proposed benefits were being delivered. It was confirmed that the performance and delivery of schemes in receipt of Council funding were monitored. The level of monitoring would be proportionate to the size of the grant awarded, with those awarded larger grants subject to more rigorous monitoring.

It was noted that the Resilience team had an excellent reputation for responding to emergencies. Given the current risk presented by the Corona Virus, it was questioned whether there were plans in place for responding to a pandemic. It was advised that at present the Director of Public Health was the lead for the virus and was responsible for providing public advice. The Resilience team had a supporting role and had updated the Council’s pandemic plan, but it had not yet been activated at this stage.

It was confirmed that out of the £8,000,000 allocated over three years through the Community Grants Fund, 10% was being held back for the Emerging Needs Fund and £100,000 per annum for the Small Grants Fund.

The Cabinet Member confirmed that she worked closely with the Community Safety leads at neighbouring boroughs to provide support for each other and share ideas. The Council also worked closely with other boroughs on a day to day basis on operational matters such as domestic homicide reviews and was in the process of launching a domestic violence scheme with Sutton and Bromley.

In regard to the funding allocated for youth engagement, it was questioned how this was split between delivering current activities and setting up the structure to deliver the long term vision. It was confirmed that it was important to have a balance of both. Funds were being invested into setting up the long term vision, but there were immediate issues that needed a response. A key aim was to influence practice both across the Council and of others in the partnership to support a more preventative approach.

In response to a question about the availability of grassroots funding it was advised that some of the changes made to the Community Fund had been made to improve access for grassroots organisations. As a result the main challenge was now having to adjudicate the many worthy applications due to oversubscription to the fund.

The Committee welcomed the confirmation that a social worker was in post specifically to deal with the issue of female genital mutilation (FGM). It was noted that there was a wide range of understanding of the issue and questioned whether consideration had been given to undertaking an investigation to improve understanding. It was confirmed that having one of eight FGM clinics in the country located in Croydon allowed facilitated collaboration amongst partners on the issues involved. An FGM Steering Group had also been set up to bring partners together to share expertise. It was suggested that there may be a role for the Scrutiny and Overview Committee to feed into the upcoming review of the FGM Strategy during 2020-21.

Given the limited amount of funding available, it was questioned whether the Council worked with other grant providers to pool its funds and whether there was support available for community based organisations to help them grown their funding base. It was confirmed that the Council had worked with other voluntary sector funds when commissioning the Community Fund, but it was acknowledged that further work could be done in this area. It was also confirmed that there was a dedicated officer at the Council whose role it was to assist the voluntary sector with accessing funding streams.

The work with domestic violence perpetrators and the implementation of the trauma based approach with schools was welcomed, but it was noted that these had been funded through external sources. As the issues involved were entrenched it was agreed that it would be essential to be able to carry on this work once the funding streams had ceased.

At the conclusion of the item the Chair thanked the Cabinet Member for the information provided and her engagement with the questions of the Committee. 

Information Requests

It was agreed that further information on the Council’s ability to remove abandoned vehicles kept on private land would be provided for the Committee.

Conclusions

Following discussion of the report, the Committee concluded that the progress made on sharing pots of funding was to be welcomed, with it agreed that given the limited funds available that it would be important to encourage further work in this area in order to maximise the funding available for the voluntary and community sector.

Recommendations

The Committee RESOLVED to recommend to the Cabinet Member for Safer Croydon and Communities that further work be undertaken on the pooling of grant funding with other partners in order to maximise the amount available for local community and voluntary organisation.