The Board considered a report of the Executive Director Environment and Regeneration, that set out proposals for how the Council could best support and assist the community and voluntary sector in the future. This followed the Council’s decision to reduce the grants it provided to the community and voluntary sector.
The report outlined the support the Council currently provided to the sector and suggested several areas which through joint working and sharing resources; knowledge and experience could be pooled to provide best value to residents, communities and businesses in Halton. One of the areas were an immediate and positive impact would be felt would be to designate a lead officer for promoting and coordinating the Council’s interface with the sector and the report outlined how this could be achieved.
It was noted that the Council Internal Audit Report on Payments to the voluntary sector had agreed several actions which included the development of a commissioning policy and performance management framework. If a Commissioning Framework was to be developed, it was recognised that there would be merit aligning it to the principles of Community Wealth Building (CWB) concept. Local authorities had been working with the Combined Authority through CLES to set out pillars of CWB, information on this was set out in Appendix 1.
RESOLVED: That the Board approves the proposals set out in sections 3.3 – 3.12 of the report.