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Agenda item

Westhive Criteria

Purpose:

For the Committee to consider the strengthening and clarification of established criteria for Westhive civic crowdfunding platform.

 

Recommendations:

That the Committee resolves to:

1.    Agree any recommendations it wishes to submit to the Executive on 20 November 2024.

 

Invited:

Councillor Alaric Smith, Executive Member for Finance

Phil Martin, Director of Place              

Janine Sparrowhawk - Community Funding Officer

 

Minutes:

The Community Funding Officer introduced the report that asked the Committee to consider the strengthening and clarification of established criteria for Westhive civic crowdfunding platform.

 

It was explained that Westhive was a ‘movement’ on Spacehive, set up to support community projects in West Oxfordshire.  Westhive was launched in October 2023. The Civic Crowdfunding platform provided a new and accessible way that West Oxfordshire residents could be at the heart of civic change and provided a springboard for locally led ideas to attract funding more easily. The report served to confirm the established criteria and strengthen elements which have

been noted as requiring clarification.

 

The following points and suggestions were noted by the Committee:

·         There has been six funding rounds over three years.

·         There was no change to the criteria it was just being organised into one place. There would be a review and analysis after round four toward the spring/summer 2025. The technical process and supporting residents remained and there was a variety of projects and Officers were working through residents experiences and would bring back the lessoned learned at a later date.

·         There was 1  application that was not successful because it did not meet the crowdfunding target out of 6 applications to date. 9 applications in this round.

·         Officers would come back to the Committee on whether the Council could make a proportionate contribution.

·         There were 2 pots of funding £125k and £175k. Current expenditure,  Round 1 £14k, ££ UKSPF, Round 2 £5k, £28k UKSPF Round 3 not confirmed yet. Not hitting £120k this year because UKSPF had a time limit but it was only on capital and there was less demand on Council’s own allocation.

·         £120k was funded from revenue contribution to capital. It had not been rolled over or lost. For 2025/26 this would be added  in to the revenue account and whatever was left would be  unspent capital. The spend for 2023/24 was not known.

·         Members requested that there be more understanding provided in the next report as there were misgivings. It was proposed that be an audit that compared old grants impacts and impacts spend with the scheme.  It was felt the Council should vote on whether it was rolled over. And an ideological debate on whether there should be an insistence on crowdfunding.

·         It was explained this was not a grant and it gone through Executive and was agreed after a long period of review. The council used to give grants to the same groups every year and it was not necessary to roll it over.  There was still £458k per year in total. Rolling over was not a great accounting approach and there could be a setup of an earmarked reserve with unspent funds. Earmarked reserves would then be approved at outturn time.

·         The Cabinet Member for Finance explained that he was interested to hear feedback and this was about making Council funding go further.  If this was approach was not working then other ways could be found to make it work. There was a review of scheme being conducted against its objectives. It was currently a three year scheme but it could be changed in future.

·         There were comments around increasing the funding if it was not being spent and it was unfair on the smaller villages to have to contribute each year. £25k was the cost for verification and engagement in terms of administration fees.

RESOLVED that the Committee noted the report and it was agreed that there would be the following recommendation to the Executive on 20 November 2024:

 

1.    Executive would seek to recoup money from funding in some way.

2.    Executive would request an internal review as money was not being spent and this was a concern. Therefore it was felt a better policy on underspend was required with funding put in an earmarked reserve.

3.    Once Executive had reviewed the agreed outcomes would come back to the Overview and Scrutiny Committee for review.

 

 

 

Supporting documents:

 

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