Glasgow Communities Fund Update

20th April 2021

The following is an update from Kathleen Caskie, Glasgow TSI Network Manager

Last week’s meeting of Glasgow City Council’s Wellbeing, Empowerment, Community and Citizen Engagement City Policy Committee (“The WECCE”) accepted a report concerning the proposed review of Glasgow Communities Fund.  The full paper as submitted to the committee can be read HERE

There are two separate reviews:

One will be carried out by the council’s own Audit department, and will seek “to gain assurance that the applications and assessment process was appropriate and inclusive”, reporting to the council’s s Finance and Audit Scrutiny Committee on 5 May 2021.

The second review will meet the remit given to it by the council’s City Administration Committee in September 2020 and will review “the approach taken so far, to learn lessons and strengthen the Council’s relationship with the third sector as needed ahead of the next funding round in 2023.”  This review will look at the Financial Inclusion services in the city and their funding, infrastructure organisations and how they are funded, equalities impact of the move to the new fund, the impact of Covid-19 on the sector, and whether the council is the right body to manage a discretionary grants process.   The WECCE paper (paragraphs 16 and 17) breaks down the detail of this further.

It is not clear if either of the reviews will answer the detailed questions that some in the sector still have regarding the scoring system used for the Communities Fund and the removal of some applications from the Sector level to the Citywide.

On questioning from councillors, officers at the WECCE  made clear that this review will NOT be co-designed with the third sector.

The meeting noted that the Social Recovery Task Force has a third sector stream which is examining in more detail the relationship between the third sector and the council, which is expected to be influential in redesigning and re-forging the relationship in a post-lockdown world.

The third sector are expected to be consulted as part of the review through a series of workshops (further details to follow).  The Review is expected to report back to the WECCE in September 2021.  Please continue to read GCVS Newsletters for further updates.