Summary
The aim of Priority 3 of the Grants Programme is to tackle poverty by helping people who are out of work into work. The focus is on those who are a long way from employment and, therefore, more likely than others to be in poverty. For this reason, the target groups are long-term unemployed people and economically inactive people. The Priority operates in all London boroughs.
This Priority is half funded by boroughs’ contributions to the Grants Programme (£1 million per year). These are matched by £1 million from London Councils’ European Social Fund (ESF) Programme.
London Councils receives this ESF from the GLA. The GLA operates within a framework set by the Department for Work and Pensions and the London Enterprise Panel.
The ESF timetable is not aligned with that of the Grants Programme. The last cycle of Priority 3 came to an end in 2015, along with the ESF programme across the UK. The Grants Committee decided at its meeting on 26 November 2014 that the Grants Programme should continue to include a Poverty Priority as part of the new ESF programme. The establishment of this new ESF programme has been delayed by negotiations on the UK ESF programme and on the London Councils- GLA agreement. London Councils is confident of signing the agreement with the GLA shortly.
The new cycle will operate until the end of 2018. The approach to commissioning is that competitive bids are invited to deliver a specification which includes numerical outcomes. All providers must be voluntary organisations. Funding is outcome related. Funding is subject to annual determination of the Grants Programme budget.
The Committee agreed the specification for the new Priority at its meeting on 9 March 2016. For the first time, the Poverty Priority includes explicit borough-by- borough targets based on borough population, unemployment rate and homelessness rates. These are set out in annex A. The unit cost per place is £1,333. This is in line with the Committee’s decisions that the Grants Programme should:
• Secure clearer, value-for-money, borough-level outcomes, while retaining a pan-London remit
• Help meet the needs of boroughs based on levels of problems
• Tackle combined homelessness and unemployment.
The total target of 4,500 places over three years costing £6 million gives an indicative unit cost of £1,333 per place.
All Poverty Priority projects will, as a condition of funding, be required to make agreements with a Homelessness Priority project in every borough.
The Chair of the Committee agreed that commissioning should be undertaken in June, to enable recommendations on providers to be made to the Committee’s AGM in July. The bidding round was launched on 24 May 2016. It was divided up into six clusters of boroughs (see annex B).
This bidding process is being undertaken subject to agreement of funding with the GLA and the grant agreement being entered into.
The closing date for bids was 22 June 2016. London Councils received 30 bids (see annex C – some organisations have bid for more than one cluster). Officers from London Councils, boroughs and voluntary sector umbrella bodies are now scoring the bids. An appraisal panel made up on Officers from London Councils, the boroughs, the GLA and the umbrella bodies will review the scores and made recommendations to the Committee. Shortly before the Committee’s meeting, London Councils will send the Committee annex D to this report which will summarise the appraisal panel’s assessment of the bids and will summarise its recommendations to the Committee for consideration at the AGM on 13 July.
