Consultation on Corporate Grant Aid 2017-20

The consultation asked for feedback on proposed changes to Sheffield City Council's Corporate Grant Aid, that provides grant funding for voluntary sector activity, which would take effect from April 2017. The consultation asked for feedback both on principles and priorities for the proposed funds and on process issues.

There were 71 responses to the online consultation, including from 14 current Grant Aid recipient organisations.

There was clear preference for multi-year grant awards and for funding to still be available to support core costs. VCF representation on the grant award advisory panel was also welcomed, although there wasconcern about how such a representative would be recruited. There was general support for a shift to an outcomes focused approach, although a range of concerns were identified in the sector's readiness to think about their services in terms of outcomes and what support would be available and whether the data and evidence gathering required would be proportionate to the funding available and whether it would detract from service delivery.

The responses having given a steer to the following decisions:

• Generally Funding agreements will be offered for 3-years for all grant aid funds, except the Lunch Club Fund, which will offer 2-year grants.
• The general principle when considering the grant award amount will be to award the full amount requested rather than to make a partial award to more organisations.
• The minimum grant award will be £10,000 rather than the proposed £15,000.
• VCF representation will be included on the award recommendation panel.  Further consideration will be given to the method of recruitment.
• Consultation did not provide a clear steer on favoured  priorities for the infrastructure fund, therefore the proposed fund will invite applications against the original four proposed priorities.
• Applicants to the infrastructure fund will be expected to prioritise any grant funded service to organisations that represent and work with the most disadvantaged communities or in the most deprived areas of the city.
• There was a clear preference not to exclude organisations currently in receipt of Grant Aid to be able to apply to the Tackling Inequalities Fund, therefore organisations who currently get Grant Aid funding will be able to apply to this fund, which will be open for applications in 2017 and will make awards from July 2017.
• Consideration will be given to how the application form and assessment criteria can ensure sucessful applications can demonstrate they are cohesion building.
• The feedback from the consultation will inform how outcome measures are agreed with successful applicants.