Agenda and draft minutes

There were no apologies for absence.

A member with a disclosable pecuniary interest or a prejudicial interest in a matter who attends a meeting of the authority at which the matter is considered:

(i) must disclose the interest at the start of the meeting or when the interest becomes apparent, and

(ii) may not participate in any discussion or vote on the matter and must withdraw from the meeting room.

A member who discloses at a meeting a disclosable pecuniary interest which is not registered in the Register of Members’ Interests or the subject of a pending notification must notify the Monitoring Officer of the interest within 28 days of the disclosure.

Disclosable pecuniary interests, personal interests and prejudicial interests are defined at Paragraphs 5-7 and Appendix A of the Members’ Code of Conduct

There were no declarations of interest.

Please be advised that the Chair of Overview and Scrutiny has further agreed that the call-in procedure shall not apply to this urgent decision. This is because the decision is urgent and any delay in implementation caused by the call-in procedure would seriously prejudice the Council's or the public's interests due to the fact that any delay in decision making will impact on the timely support needed for families with children, other vulnerable households and individuals. Accordingly, the Chair of Overview and Scrutiny Committee has agreed that the decision is both reasonable in all circumstances, and that it should be treated as a matter of urgency. This is in accordance with Part 4, Section H, and Paragraph 18 of the Council Constitution.

The Leader considered the report which sought approval to allocate remaining monies from Haringey’s allocation of the Government’s Hardship Fund as announced in the Budget on 11 March 2020.  The proposed approach for the allocation of the remaining funds was set out in paragraph 5.4 and Appendix 1 of the report.

The Leader RESOLVED to:

i.   Approve the funding allocation as set out in paragraph 5.4 and Appendix 1;

ii.  Delegate authority to the Director for Customers, Transformation and Resources, in consultation with the Leader of the Council to re-distribute funding between the headings set out in appendix 1 and the schedule in Appendix 2 according to emerging need; and

iii.Agree that this policy is subject to the availability of government funding and will terminate on 31st March 2021 unless terminated earlier or extended beyond this date by Cabinet / Cabinet Member decision.

Reasons for decision

The Government has provided a Hardship Fund to local authorities and produced guidance that enables councils to use any surplus from the required £150 CTRS payments to provide additional support outside the council tax system through Local Welfare or similar schemes.

The sum still to be allocated is £1.66m and so allocation requires Cabinet approval.

The Hardship Fund is available until 31^st March 2021. Therefore, there is a need for an urgent decision to be taken on the recommendation in order to ensure that payments are made to support vulnerable people in the period to then.

Alternative options considered

The alternative option considered was not to develop an approach to distributing the remaining Hardship Fund, which would result in c.£1.66m of hardship grant not being made available to Haringey residents in need of support.