Home Office Early Intervention Youth Fund applications

The Home Office Early Intervention Youth Fund bids are due to be submitted online by midday on 14th September 2018. MOPAC has agreed a bidding strategy with London Councils and London community safety partners, in light of the very short timescales and systems implemented by the Home Office. The DMPC has been appraised of the details of the fund and of MOPAC’s proposed bidding strategy.

All bids will go through internal governance mechanisms, including a quality assurance internal process designed for this fund. Partner led bids have also gone through a MOPAC and London Councils led quality assurance review process.

In order to ensure bids are uploaded to the Home Office application website in a timely fashion, quality control will be managed by MOPAC’s Director of Criminal Justice Commissioning, and authority for final sign-off and approval for submission will rest with MOPAC’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO). MOPAC’s Chief Financial Officer (CFO) will provide recommendations for financial oversight and approval to the CEO.

The DMPC is asked to approve the bidding strategy set out below, and further to delegate authority for final sign off of the bids to Rebecca Lawrence, CEO.

1. Introduction and background

1.1. The Home Office Early Intervention Youth Fund was launched on 30th July 2018. £22m is available nationally, for two years covering this year (2018/19) and next (2019/20), and bids need to be submitted by midday on 14th September 2018.

1.2. The DMPC is asked to sign off and agree MOPAC’s bidding strategy and approach before bids are finalised and submitted. Due to the short timescales, the DMPC is requested to delegate authority for final sign off of the individual bids to be submitted to the Home Office to the MOPAC CEO, Rebecca Lawrence.

2. Issues for consideration

2.1. Quality control will be managed by the Director of Criminal Justice Commissioning, Samantha Cunningham, who will make recommendations to the CEO, Rebecca Lawrence, for sign-off and approval to submit the bids.

3. Financial Comments

3.1. Individual bids can be submitted for up to a maximum amount of £700,000 across the two financial years (up to £350,000 each financial year).

3.2. MOPAC intends to submit up to 30 bids, for an amount up to a maximum of £21m across the two financial years. Final amounts will depend on decisions from Home Office following the scoring of bids.

3.3. Reasonable costs associated with managing the bids will be included within MOPAC’s bids.

4. Legal Comments

4.1. This decision is in line with the MOPAC’s Scheme of Consent and Delegation, in which paragraph 4.8 provides the DMPC with delegated authority to approve bids for grant funding made and all offers made of grant funding; and/or where appropriate a strategy for grant giving.

5. Equality Comments

5.1. Under section 149 of the Equality Act 2010 (the Equality Act), as a public authority the Deputy Mayor/MOPAC must have due regard to the need to eliminate discrimination, harassment and victimisation, and any conduct that is prohibited by or under this Act; and to advance equality of opportunity and foster good relations between people who share a protected characteristic and those who do not. Protected characteristics under the Equality Act are age, disability, gender re-assignment, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex, sexual orientation, and marriage or civil partnership status (the duty in respect of this last characteristic is to eliminate unlawful discrimination only).

5.2. The bids will be required to meet these expectations with regards to Equality and Diversity, and will be assessed against this as part of the quality assurance process, prior to any recommendation being made to the CEO for sign-off.

6. GDPR

6.1 A full Data Protection Impact Assessment will be completed as part of mobilisation activity for the project, to ensure that all delivery is fully compliant with the requirements of the GDPR.

7. Background/supporting papers

7.1. MOPAC and London Councils convened a meeting on August 22nd to discuss and agree a strategy for bidding to the Early Intervention Youth Fund. The meeting included Heads of Community Safety who are on the MOPAC Co-Commissioning working group and stakeholders from the voluntary sector, who currently work in this space.

7.2. It was agreed that MOPAC would work with London community safety partners to submit up to 30 individual bids, each worth up to a maximum of £700,000 over the two financial years (2018/19 and 2019/20).

7.3. MOPAC led bids will be subject to MOPAC’s internal governance mechanisms, and partner-led bids will be subject to the appropriate governance processes within the relevant organisation.

7.4. All bids will be subject to a quality assurance process. They will be reviewed initially by a panel of officers from MOPAC and London Councils. If they reach the required quality threshold, they will be passed for review to the Director of Criminal Justice Commissioning.

7.5. The Director of Criminal Justice Commissioning will make recommendations regarding the bids to be submitted to the Home Office to the CEO, and the Chief Financial Officer will provide recommendations for financial oversight and approval to the CEO.

7.6. The CEO will be responsible for approving the final list of bids for submission.