Home Office Emergency COVID-19 Funding for small/micro charities

The VRU has been provisionally allocated an additional £586,802.14 from Home Office for additional, emergency support funding for small/micro charities that are working with vulnerable young people at risk of being involved in serious violence. The allocation of this funding is subject to a VRU bid being approved by Home Office.

This funding is specifically for small/micro charities (defined as those having an income less than £100,000 per annum). The offer of this emergency funding is contingent on it being provided to secure critical frontline services affected by Covid-19.

The VRU has publicised this funding opportunity and invited proposals from organisations which work with vulnerable young people at risk of being involved in serious violence, and where expenditure has been incurred in relation to immediate financial hardship, significantly increased demand, or an urgent need to adapt services to meet Covid-19 associated measures (e.g. social distancing), for costs incurred from the period of April 2020 to 31st October.

The VRU has undertaken an assessment of the proposals submitted by organisations and made a recommendation to the Deputy Mayor on which proposals comply with the Home Office funding parameters and will have the greatest impact. This decision seeks the approval to submit these proposals to the Home Office for allocation of funds and to put in place the necessary grant agreements or contract variations to enable the disbursement of funds.

The Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime is recommended to:

1. Approve the submission of VRU’s bid for funding of £586,802.14

2. Should the VRU’s bid be successful, approve the

o Entering into of a grant agreement with Home Office for £586,802.14

o Award of grant funding to the relevant successful organisations.

1. Introduction and background

1.1. On 9th April, the Government announced £750m funding for the UK charity sector in response to the COVID-19 crisis. Within this funding, the Home Office secured additional, emergency support funding for small/micro charities that are working with vulnerable young people at risk of being involved in serious violence.

1.2. On 22nd June, the London VRU were informed of £587k of funding being made available (based on the existing 20/21 VRU funding formula). This provision for small/micro charities (defined as those having an income less than £100,000 per annum) is contingent on it being provided to secure critical frontline services affected by Covid-19.

1.3. To be eligible for funding, organisations must be registered charities, charitable incorporated organisations, or a social enterprise; this includes companies limited by guarantee and community interest companies. These can include existing delivery partners and/or new organisations which are experiencing; immediate financial hardship, significantly increased demand, or an urgent need to adapt services to meet Covid-19 associated measures (e.g. social distancing). The funding is for costs incurred between 01 April 2020 and 31 October 2020 (inclusive).

2. Issues for consideration

2.1. The VRU widely advertised this funding opportunity as a result received a total 231 funding proposals valuing over £3.5m. Following an assessment process, 56 bids were successfully put forward - 33 had part of their funding requests approved, and a further 23 were approved in full. The reason some proposals were rejected in full is because the service, provider or proposal did not demonstrate a specialist youth violence service, working with targeted vulnerable young people or because bids were for ineligible costs or costs not related to the request via the bid. Similarly, the reason why some proposals were only partly funded is because some of the costs claimed were not eligible expenditure under this fund, not correct claim period or was not relevant to the bid.

2.2. The total funding request VRU is recommending to be submitted to the Home Office is valued at £586,802.14. Once VRU receives a grant agreement from the Home Office confirming the funding allocations, up to 56 new grant agreements or variations will need to be drafted and new payment arrangements set up. The final funding amounts and number of new grant agreements will be confirmed once the Home Office has approved VRU’s submission.

2.3. The VRU ran an open and transparent process in allocating this funding which has attracted successful bids from many grassroots organisations and small specialist organisations that support groups with protected characteristics. The majority of the successful applicants to this Home Office funding opportunity are providers that VRU has no existing relationship with or only an indirect funding relationship via the London Crime Prevention Fund, Victims Small Grants Fund, or as part of larger partnerships that VRU commissions directly.

2.4. The DMPC is asked to approve the proposals selected for submission to the Home Office, following an internal assessment process, and the award of grants, or issuing of grant and contract variations to those organisations should VRU’s bid to the Home Office be successful.

3. Financial Comments

3.1. The VRU intends to bid for £586,802.14 of grant funding. The funding is only for use in 20/21, for activities/costs incurred between April 2020-October 2020.

3.2. The VRU is unable to claim back the costs associated with administering this funding from this funding source.

4. Legal Comments

4.1. This decision is in line with the MOPAC’s Scheme of Consent and Delegation, in which paragraph 4.8 of the MOPAC Scheme of Delegation and Consent provides that the Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime (DMPC) has delegated authority to approve:

• Approve bids for grant funding made and all offers made of grant funding; and/or where appropriate a strategy for grant giving.

• The strategy for the award of individual grants and/ or the award of all individual grants whether to secure or contribute to securing crime reduction in London or for other purposes.

5. Commercial Issues

5.1. The funding will be allocated to organisations via grant agreements, using MOPAC’s standard term and conditions (MOPAC being the contracting authority). The VRU will incorporate the appropriate terms and conditions from the Grant Agreement between MOPAC and Home Office into the agreement and variations with the recipients of funding to ensure money is spent in compliance with these terms.

6. Public Health Approach

The spend plan takes a public health approach to tackling violence, which means looking at violence not as isolated incidents or solely a police enforcement problem. Instead, this approach looks at violence as a preventable consequence of a range of factors, such as adverse early-life experiences, or harmful social or community experiences and influences.

7. GDPR and Data Privacy

7.1. MOPAC will adhere to the Data Protection Act (DPA) 2018 and ensure that any organisations who are commissioned to do work with or on behalf of MOPAC are fully compliant with the policy and understand their GDPR responsibilities.

8. Equality Comments

8.1. MOPAC is required to comply with the public sector equality duty set out in section 149(1) of the Equality Act 2010. This requires MOPAC to have due regard to the need to eliminate discrimination, advance equality of opportunity and foster good relations by reference to people with protected characteristics. The protected characteristics are: age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex and sexual orientation. As part of a need’s assessment for Covid-19 related extraordinary funding has identified/will be asked to identify if they support victims with protected characteristics.