Agenda item

[Report of the Director For Children’s Services. To be introduced by the Cabinet Member for Communities, Safety and Engagement.]

The Council and community partners have been successful in bidding for funding from the Greater London Authority through the Young Londoners' Fund. This brief paper will set out arrangements for receiving and spending the grant over the three years of its existence.

The Cabinet Member for Communities, Safety and Engagement introduced the report, which sought approval to draw down funding awarded to the borough from the Young Londoners Fund, a mayoral funding stream. Approval of receipt of this grant was required by Cabinet as a key decision and the funding was over £500k.

This funding would allow a multi-agency project, Community Gold, to be taken forward and would seek to engage proactively with young people between the ages of 10 and 21 years, and to ensure they have pathways to support and to a life away from violence. The partnership would start delivery early in the new financial year.

The Haringey Community Gold was a network of connected community programmes that will catch and respond to young people at various stages in the cycle of serious harm/exclusion/criminality. It was anticipated that 2,166 young people would benefit from the project, supporting young people aged between 10 -21.

In response to questions from Cllr Ogiehor, the following information as noted:

• The resources allocation was reflecting the reality of delivering services through the Voluntary sector. Where the Council could subsidise youth services they were seeking to do that or directly fund projects through capital schemes when  possible. The  proposed Wood Green hub was highlighted as an example

• Evaluation was a key element. Officers clarified that £46k was the figure for the management fees of NLPC and the £210k would be used to fund organisations and projects as agreed by the GLA, and meet the outputs and targets required from them.

• There would be two sets of evaluations, the Young Londoners Fund themselves will also evaluate as well as the Bridge Renewal Trust to determine to what extent the approach adopted has long term impact and benefits.

• In relation to managing the projects, the NLPC had a good infrastructure, and would be able to take forward the learning from the projects and track the outcomes.

RESOLVED

That pursuant to CSO 17.1, to approve the receipt of a grant of £500,000 for each of three years from 2019 from the Young Londoners’ Fund to Haringey Community Gold to address issues of serious youth violence.

To approve the award of contract to NLPC for £138k for management of the projects and the onward pass porting of allocated funds to the community organisations as set out in paragraph of the attached report, in accordance with the original bid application to the Greater London Authority.

Reasons for decision

Haringey Council has been awarded a grant of £500,000 p.a. for three years from the Young Londoners’ Fund of the Greater London Authority. Cabinet is required to agree to receipt and award of this grant as stipulated by CSO 17.0 as the value is over £500k.

In addition, Haringey Community Gold is a partnership between the Council and community organisations and the funding received by the Council will be allocated both to direct spend on Council employed detached youth workers and through NLPC to community-based organisations in Haringey.

NLPC was an integral part of designing the bid in partnership with the Council and other delivery partners. The bid focused on the strengths of each organisation and the submission included NLPC holding management responsibility. The function was agreed by the overall partnership and accepted by NLPC, which has managed some of the delivery partners under different programmes and was identified and voted as the preferred option.

Alternative options considered

The Council could decide not to receive the Grant. However, the bid for the Grant was developed on the grounds of significant levels of youth violence in the borough. The successful bid demonstrated a clear need for a community based and long-term approach to addressing serious youth violence. Therefore, this option has not been considered.