Support for the Community & Voluntary Sector Consultation Results, December 2008

1. Background

Thanet District Council has been looking at its process for the future allocation of grants. Due to the current financial climate, the new policy was devised in comparison to the former Thanet District Council grants procedure in which the cost of administering the scheme was disproportionate to the funds available for grant giving.

As part of the consultation, Thanet’s third sector were asked to comment on the proposed resources available through the new scheme, whether there was anything within the consultation document that needed to be clarified and for their overall comments.

The feedback from this consultation will be used to shape the policy further before it is formally adopted by Cabinet members in February 2009.

2. Methodology

In September 2008, Councillor Jo Gideon presented the draft policy at the Thanet Voluntary & Community Sector Forum to begin the consultation process. At the Forum, questionnaires were given out and there was also a “breakout” session with Councillor Gideon for direct questions to be answered. Following this presentation, the draft policy and a feedback form were then sent to any organisation that had applied to Thanet District Council for grant funding in the last three years and all organisations that had requested the information.

All consultation documents were sent by post and were available on request from Sarah Phippin in Corporate Projects & Improvement; the consultation was also advertised on the Thanet District Council website, the Thanet Voluntary & Community Sector Forum website and the CASE Kent newsletter. Consultation was given an eight week response period in accordance with the Thanet Compact Code of Practice on Consultation.

3. Responses

36 (19.4%) feedback forms were returned. All responses and our answers to them can be seen in Appendix A.

4. Summary of findings

On the whole, feedback was very positive from all organisations that responded.
The majority of organisations understood the limitations in the Council’s current financial resources and believed that the resources that have been provisionally offered would be of use to them.
There were questions regarding rental grants and match funding which will be answered in Appendix A.
The consultation document on the whole was regarded as clear and concise, but there seemed to be confusion regarding the separation of events from the grants budget. This
was because formerly organisations applying for events grants applied through the same programme, whereas under the new procedure there will be a separate procedure for
applying for events funding which is still under discussion.
It was also commented on that organisations were not clear what constituted an event, whether this was a single day or a series of days over a set period.

5. Next steps

Results of the consultation are to be fed back to the public via the Thanet District Council website and via the next Thanet Voluntary Community Sector Forum in January 2009.
The policy document is due to go to Cabinet on 12th February 2009 for approval.

Next: Appendix A, Full consultation results

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