MD3141 Health and Wellbeing work programme 2023-24

This Decision relates to work in the Healthy Children, Healthy Minds and Healthy Communities aims of the Health Inequalities Strategy (HIS). This includes work relating to the two health focussed missions of the London Recovery Programme – the Healthy Place, Healthy Weight (HPHW), and Mental Health and Wellbeing (MHWB) Recovery Missions. These missions are also the key commitments in the HIS Implementation Plan 21-24 for Healthy Children and Healthy Minds. An overview of the context and proposed work under each theme is provided below. 

    Healthy Minds 

1.2    The MHWB mission is a commitment that by 2025, London will have a quarter of a million wellbeing champions, supporting Londoners where they live, work and play. The longer-term aim is to work with partners to ensure Londoners have the skills, tools and resources to support one another, and protect or promote mental health and psychosocial wellbeing. 

1.3    Part of this MD relates to the GLA’s contribution (£350,000) toward the Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust’s (the Royal Free) delivery of the Thrive LDN project for 2023-2024. The Royal Free, in delivering the Thrive LDN project, are a key delivery partner for the MHWB mission. The Thrive LDN project is a public mental health partnership supported and funded by the Mayor of London, as well as the NHS, London local government and the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities London (OHID).

1.4    This MD includes the continuation of mental health programmes started in 2021-22, including resource for Thrive LDN. Decisions relating to spend in previous years are: MD2215, MD2265, MD2323, MD2439, MD2510, MD2631, MD2704, MD2852, MD3026 and MD2930.

1.5    The aggregate value of the funding provided to the Royal Free as contribution to its Thrive LDN delivery costs over the past two financial years and that proposed by this MD is £825,000.

1.6    The aims and benefits of the Thrive LDN, Healthy Minds project and its continued funding are set out in summary at sections 2.1 and 2.2 below.   

Healthy Communities 

1.7    The Dementia Friendly London programme was launched by the Alzheimer’s Society with the GLA’s support in 2018 and committed to a bold and ambitious vision to support Londoners living with dementia to live well with the disease. The programme puts Londoners affected by dementia at its heart and they agree the priorities for action. Since the launch, considerable progress has been made by partners across health and care, cultural institutions, housing, transport, business, and local government towards the initial goals of raising awareness of the issues facing people living with dementia; tackling stigma; changing attitudes; and taking practical action. The COVID-19 pandemic has had a huge impact on people living with dementia, their carers and Alzheimer’s Society.

1.8    Part of this MD seeks approval for the award of grant funding of £50,000 to Alzheimer’s Society as a contribution to the costs of its Dementia Friendly London programme in 2023-24. Activity will focus on engaging and involving people affected by dementia, awareness raising, convening partners and supporting action and work to understand the barriers to diagnosis in minority communities.

1.9    This MD includes the continuation of the Dementia Friendly London programme started in 2018. Decisions relating to spend in previous years are: ADD2582 and DD2479.

1.10    The aggregate value of the funding provided to the Alzheimer’s Society as a contribution to its costs of its Dementia Friendly London programme over the past two financial years and that proposed by this MD is £170,000.

1.11    The aims and benefits of the Dementia Friendly London programme and its continued funding are set out in summary at sections 2.3 to 2.5 (inclusive) below.   

    Healthy Children 

1.12    The commitment for HPHW mission is that by 2025 Londoners will find it easier to eat healthier food and be active where they live, learn, shop, work and play. The mission reports on progress to the Mayor’s Advisory Group on Child Healthy Weight and the London Obesity Delivery Board (LODB).

1.13    Decisions related to spend in previous years: MD2930 recorded the Mayor’s approval of expenditure for the work of the mission including the convenience store project in 2021-22 and 2022-23.  MD2915 recorded the Mayor’s approval of the expenditure for the expansion of the School Superzones programme.

1.14    The key programmes for the HPHW mission, which align with GLA commitments are:

•    expansion of the School Superzones programme across London 
•    promotion of water-only schools 
•    extension of healthier food advertising policies beyond the TfL estate.

1.15    The mission works in partnership with all sectors. A key area is work with the food retail sector to increase the attractiveness, availability, affordability and supply of healthier food through the co-operation and support of businesses operating in disadvantaged areas.

1.16     This MD is seeking the approval of the award of grant funding to Impact on Urban Health as a contribution to its costs of the evaluation of its Convenience Store Project. Children and young people are the primary focus for this project. Convenience stores are generally less healthy than their larger competitors with smaller product ranges and less balanced options. The project is jointly funded by the HPHW mission and Impact on Urban Health and has used the learning from the Mayor’s Good Food Retail programme. The work is taking place in the Oval/Vauxhall and Brixton Hill School Superzones. It aims to: 

•    develop a systematic and practical approach to supporting store owners, helping them to improve the availability and appeal of healthier options in the shops that children frequent
•    make the commercial case for stocking and promoting a healthier range of products aimed at children such as snacks and drinks
•    develop a set of recommendations and tools for improving and scaling up the work across other areas in London including School Superzones.

1.17    The project is being delivered over two phases and includes:

•    Engagement with children to gain insights into how they shop.
•    Development of action plans for 10 stores near the Lambeth School Superzones including top 100 lines and increasing uptake of healthy start vouchers.
•    Understanding how retailers can increase demand for and sales of healthier options. 
•    Using the learning to develop practical recommendations and key messages to help replicate the work in other areas. This includes: 

    engaging key stakeholders from local authorities to support the project 
    preparing plans for scaling the work across London
    briefings to national wholesalers via the Association of Convenience Stores and Federation of Wholesale Distributors on how they can support this work.

1.18    The aggregate value of the funding provided to Impact on Urban Health as a contribution to its project evaluation costs is limited to that proposed by this MD (£20,000).

1.19    The aims and benefits of funding the activity are set out in summary at section 2.7 below.

1.20    The table below provides a breakdown of the approvals being sought under this MD for 2023-2024 expenditure. 
 

1.21    Expenditure will take the form of grant awards or payment for services procured, depending on the nature of the activity concerned, the parties undertaking it and in line with relevant GLA procedures including the GLA’s Contracts and Funding Code. 

Healthy Minds

2.1    The Mayor wants to support Londoners’ mental health and wellbeing – including responding to challenges such as the pandemic and recovery, and the cost of living crisis. The Mayor wants more Londoners to be empowered, enabled and encouraged to take action to support their own and others wellbeing. A key part of this is the commitment that by 2025, London will have a quarter of a million wellbeing champions, supporting Londoners where they live, work and play. 

2.2    To achieve this, we will take a coordinated public mental health approach made up of the programmes of work set out in the table at paragraph 2.9. Together, these will have the overall ambition to create a change in culture where Londoners feel better equipped to support each other and have greater capacity to cope with uncertainty and adversity by:

•    building a London-wide infrastructure for wellbeing champions, enabling them to access new opportunities, building and sharing knowledge and catalysing widespread engagement across London
•    increasing community involvement in production and dissemination of knowledge, leading to more effective interventions and prevention programmes
•    improving individual and community resilience through access to culturally competent and trauma informed resources and support
•    working with London's workplaces and education settings to support good mental health 
•    improving the opportunities for good mental health and wellbeing for people from intersectional and marginalised communities 
•    increasing Londoners understanding of the importance of mental wellbeing
•    expanding the evidence base for public mental health  
•    increasing brand awareness, recognition and understanding of Thrive LDN & the support from the Mayor to the programme. 

Healthy Communities - Dementia Friendly London programme 2023-24

2.3    £50,000 grant funding to Alzheimer’s Society will deliver the following objectives:

•    effective engagement and strengthening of networks for people affected by dementia so that they can help to create a dementia friendly London 
•    improvement of our collective understanding of the barriers faced by people affected by dementia from minority communities who are seeking help and support  
•    bringing together key partners from a range of sectors to learn from Londoners affected by dementia and encourage them to make dementia-friendly changes to their work.

2.4    The funding will cover the Programme Manager at Alzheimer’s Society to deliver the following activities:

•    regular meetings of the People’s Panel to share their experience and influence those from sector specific organisations
•    sector specific recommendations on becoming dementia-friendly (informed by the People Panel made up of those living with and affected by dementia)
•    engagement and facilitation of task and finish groups formed of sector specific representatives who are able to action dementia-friendly changes, engaging with the People Panel and feeding back and changes
•    comms and engagement programme – including events (e.g. World Alzheimer’s Day activity, 21 September 2023), regular updates, social media
•    two meetings of the Executive board and regular progress reports throughout the year
•    ethnicity and stigma project – building on previous work by Alzheimer’s Society on the issues for South Asian Community members affected by dementia; activity will include:

    listening events with people affected by dementia from Black and Arab communities
    two reports from the above listening events, outlining key barriers to diagnosis and recommendations.

2.5    Expected outcomes of this work are:

•    Increased understanding from partners of the issues faced by people living with dementia and the practical improvements they can make to support them. This is expected to lead to changes in improvements to the way in which people with dementia access services including health and care, transport and other sectors including cultural venues and high streets.
•    Increased understanding of the barriers to getting a dementia diagnosis and the support which that diagnosis unlocks.  This will enable service commissioners to improve quality and access of their services.
•    Increased engagement and involvement of people with dementia. The programme will provide opportunities to voice issues and concerns based on their lived experience and to ultimately influence policy and practice in key London sectors.
•    Increased awareness and understanding of dementia will help to reduce the stigma people feel and challenge negative attitudes. This will increase people’s confidence to offer help and support. Together this will help people with dementia feel more confident to go out and visit shops, cultural venues, friends and relatives.

Healthy Communities - Dementia Friendly Venues Charter 2023-24

2.6    Transfer of £22,700 from the Health and Wellbeing Team to the Culture and Creative Industries Unit will seek to embed the Dementia Friendly Venues Charter across London and enable delivery of the following: 

Objectives 
•    increased number of accredited venues
•    improved public access to accredited venues
•    developed a quality assurance methodology to support positive user experience.

Outputs 
•    50 venues completed accreditation
•    deliver 12 webinars and 36 one-to-one surgeries
•    Quality Assurance pilot delivered with five people with lived experience participating across pilot
•    evaluation report of pilot
•    enhanced digital portal with improved data analysis and public map.

Outcome
•    more Londoners affected by dementia are able to access venues including museums, libraries, cinemas and galleries which will improve their wellbeing and quality of life.

Healthy Children

2.7    The evaluation of the convenience store project is expected to start in July 2023 and will be completed in the autumn. It will answer the following central question: “How do children and young people use convenience stores?” This will build on the insights from engagement with children and young people led by Rice Marketing. The evaluation will consider issues such as: 

•    the responsibility of store owners to children including sales of energy drinks 
•    the relationships between schools, local stores and children
•    how children can be better informed about processed food
•    how we can continue to drive engagement with wholesalers and suppliers
•    what it takes to get healthier lines stocked in convenience stores including supply chain, engagement etc and how can this be sustained
•    how the demand from young people for these products can this be increased
•    the impact of stocking healthier lines on convenience store sales and profits.

2.8     The learning and recommendations from the evaluation will support replication of the work in other areas. Impact on Urban Health have commissioned Brightpurpose to deliver the evaluation. Brightpurpose has extensive experience of evaluating community-based health and wellbeing, food justice and system change projects.  

2.9     The table below gives a breakdown of deliverables for the above work programmes, and the decisions being sought for proposed 2023-2024 expenditure.

3.1    Under section 149 of the Equality Act 2010, as a public authority, the GLA must have ‘due regard’ of the need to:

 
•    eliminate unlawful discrimination, harassment and victimisation 
•    advance equality of opportunity and foster good relations between people who have a protected characteristic and those who do not.  

3.2    The public sector equality duty requires the identification and evaluation of the likely potential impacts, both positive and negative, of the decision on those with protected characteristics (age, disability, gender reassignment, pregnancy and maternity, race, gender, religion or belief, sexual orientation) and set out how you are addressing the duties).

3.3    Reducing inequalities in health and promoting health equity underpins the work of the health and wellbeing team. Health inequalities are differences in health that are unnecessary, avoidable, unjust and unfair. They often exist between groups of people with protected characteristics, and who experience poverty and socioeconomic deprivation. Specific equalities actions include:

•    An Integrated Impact Assessment, which included an Equalities Impact Assessment within its scope, was conducted as part of the development of the Health Inequalities Strategy. This identified major positive and negative impacts of the programme for groups protected under the Equality Act 2010; and proposed ways to strengthen benefits and mitigate negative impacts, and to identify issues concerning the four cross-cutting themes under the GLA Act 1999. The HIS was adopted in October 2018 and a refreshed Implementation Plan was published in 2021.  
•    A series of 14 population health inequalities indicators are monitored and published as part of the implementation of the HIS. These demonstrate the gap in outcomes between different populations on key metrics. There is some overlap between these measures and those reported on for the EDI strategy, e.g. child obesity.

3.4    The Mayor’s Equality, Diversity and Inclusion strategy sets out how the Mayor will help address the inequalities, barriers and discrimination experienced by groups protected by the Equality Act 2010. The above work programme aligns with the Mayor’s Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion Strategy Objectives (2022). In particular Objective 12, which commits to address the reasons for health inequalities that cause some groups to experience poorer physical and mental health outcomes. The objective directly reference work covered in this MD – in particular the two recovery missions, and the Right to Thrive programme:

 
•    Through the London Recovery Board’s Healthy Place, Healthy Weight mission, the Mayor is working with and providing funding to London’s boroughs to set up School Superzones in the 30 per cent most socio-economically deprived neighbourhoods.
•    Through the London Recovery Board’s Mental Health and Wellbeing mission, the Mayor is working with Thrive LDN to increase awareness and understanding of mental ill-health across London and combat its stigma. A £100,000 Right to Thrive Innovation Fund will support community mental health projects for Londoners experiencing discrimination.

3.5    All activities within the Thrive LDN work programme and the MHWB Recovery Mission recognise the socio-economic and political factors that contribute to inequality, unfair outcomes and poor mental health. In response to this, they aim to drive action on equity, enable and sustain active participation of Londoners, and improve the factors which shape the conditions in which we live, work and grow. All Thrive LDN activities are developed using an Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) framework and equality impact assessment template to ensure opportunities to reduce health inequalities and advance equity are identified from the outset. Thrive LDN is committed to building coalitions to challenge injustice and scale prevention to give everyone the equal opportunity to good mental health and wellbeing. 

3.6    In 2022-23, an EDI Framework for Thrive LDN and accompanying EIA template was developed to more clearly demonstrate how they meet the requirements of the Public Sector Equality Duty, align more explicitly with the Advancing Mental Health Equalities Strategy and the Patient and Carer Race Equality Framework, and ensure Thrive LDN delivers accessible, inclusive, and responsive activities to Londoners and their communities, including those from racialised and minority groups.

3.7    In terms of the Healthy Communities dementia programme, whilst there are over 4,500 Londoners aged under 65 years with onset dementia, the disease largely affects older people. Age is a protected characteristic under the public sector equality duty. Dementia Friendly London has been aligned to Age Friendly London, a World Health Organisation programme to which the Mayor signed up in 2018. Work is ongoing to align priorities and plans. Research by Age UK and Alzheimer’s Society has found that older people, and people with dementia, experience negative attitudes, prejudice and discrimination. Research from Alzheimer’s Society shows that people from minority communities, in particular South Asian and Black Londoners, are under-represented in diagnosis and support services. A key priority of this grant funding is to enable Alzheimer’s Society to identify and support increased participation and engagement of diverse Londoners impacted by dementia.

3.8    In terms of Healthy Children: Child obesity is a huge challenge in London where over 40 per cent of year 6 children are overweight or obese. This can have profound impacts on the health and life chances of children. There is a strong relationship between deprivation and obesity. The effects of deprivation can be seen at both ages 4-5 and 10-11 but they widen with age. Significant differences also exist between ethnic groups in London. Some of the differences will be due to the confounding factor of deprivation. Due to the strong links between deprivation and overweight and obesity, Healthy Place, Healthy Weight mission activities are prioritised in areas that fall in the bottom 30 per cent in the indices of multiple deprivation, and/or areas with particularly poor health-related outcomes. One of the principles of the mission is that communities are central to its design, and work should promote community centred and culturally competent best practice.
 

Major risks and issues

4.1    Risks are assessed and managed on a programme basis. Cross-cutting and major risks are reported quarterly through the GLA’s corporate performance management process. Risks are rated on a scale from 1 to 4, according to the GLA risk framework. At the time of writing, the major risks are as follows: 

    Links to Mayoral strategies and programmes

4.2    The GLA health programme is directly related to delivery of the Mayor’s Health Inequalities Strategy, a statutory duty under the GLA Act 1999. 

4.3    In December 2021, the Mayor published the HIS Implementation Plan 2021-24 setting out GLA and partner commitments. These included the above commitments.

4.4    The Healthy Minds programme and the Healthy Children programmes of work set out above are part of the London Recovery Programme. Dementia Friendly London is a key part of the Healthy Communities chapter of the HIS, and aims to support people affected by dementia, including family members and carers, to live well with dementia. 

4.5    Tackling child obesity has been a long-term priority for the Mayor and is reflected in the Health       Inequalities strategy, the London Food Strategy and development of the Healthy Place, Healthy Weight mission. In 2018 the Mayor established the London Child Obesity Taskforce (LCOT) to give every child in London the chance to grow up eating healthily, drinking plenty of water and being physically active. Its call to action, ‘Every Child a Healthy Weight’, sets out 10 shared ambitions that need to be achieved if we are to create a healthy-weight city. The LCOT has now transitioned into the Mayor’s Advisory Group on Child Healthy Weight which continues to provide expert advice to the Mayor on delivering against these ambitions. Reducing child obesity is also one of the 10 areas of focus for pan-London collaboration for London’s Health and Social Care partners and the work of the mission is included in the Every Child a Healthy Weight Delivery Plan to which the Mayor is a signatory.

    Subsidy control

    Healthy Minds

4.6    This MD seeks approval of a grant award to enable the Royal Free to continue hosting a pan-London mental health prevention programme. This programme, provided through the Thrive LDN programme, is being delivered to support Londoner’s mental health and wellbeing – in particular Londoner’s in underserved communities and those at higher risk of poorer mental health. Thrive LDN activity, undertaken by a coalition of partners, is focussed on ensuring everyone living or working in London is treated fairly and can live a happy and healthy life.  By taking a prevention focussed approach to improving Londoners mental health, Thrive LDN makes a valuable contribution to achieving a fairer and more equitable city. Via Thrive LDN, the Royal Free provides services such as free training for members of communities to support peers at a local level and suicide prevention programmes amongst others which are described above. 

4.7    In addition to that provided by the Mayor of London, the Royal Free receives funding for Thrive LDN from the NHS, several of the London boroughs and OHID. The work conducted by Thrive LDN is not a core NHS service and, without funding provided by the GLA and others, it would not be possible for the Royal Free to deliver Thrive LDN including the planned activities and objectives as discussed above. The funding will be used by the Royal Free to pay for specific and dedicated services and resources, as set out above, which are beyond core service delivery, resources or staffing. The programmes to be delivered have been costed for the amount for which approval is sought under cover of this MD. 

4.8    The Thrive LDN programme, hosted at Royal Free, is a London-wide mental health project. It is part of London’s health and care infrastructure, with leadership from and accountability to the London Health Board. It also has its own independent Advisory Board, which has broad, cross-sectoral membership from across London. The Thrive LDN programme is uniquely placed in its relationships across London’s health and care infrastructure to undertake the work and achieve the aims and objectives set out above. The Royal Free are the only body currently hosting and resourced to support a pan-London programme of this nature – focussed on mental health and with this partnership. Only their delivery of their programme can achieve the aims and objectives set out above. The GLA and other funding partners have not been approached by any other body who are similarly well positioned to undertake this work. With this in mind, we do not believe that there is any other organisation similarly well-placed and able to undertake this work and meet the objectives set out. 

4.9    Many of the service recipients are people most affected by poverty and deprivation. Accordingly, they would be unable to afford to pay for a service at all. We would not expect to see any negative effects on domestic competition or investment and international trade or investment. The policy objectives are local to London and focus on vulnerable Londoners, who would not otherwise be able to access such services.

4.10    There is no other service model like this in the UK and no mainstream funding is available at this time to address this need.

Healthy Communities

4.11    This MD seeks approval of the award of grant funding to Alzheimer’s Society to deliver the Dementia Friendly London programme. The GLA Health and Wellbeing Team leads the implementation of the Mayor’s statutory ten-year London Health Inequalities Strategy (HIS) with relevant partners and stakeholders, and supports the Mayor’s leadership role as chair of the London Health Board.  

4.12    The aims and objectives of this programme align with those of the Mayor’s HIS, which sets out plans to tackle unfair differences in health to make London a healthier, fairer city. Health inequalities are inextricably linked to other types of inequality. This is because they are most often a direct result of inequalities in other areas of life, i.e. socioeconomic differences. The strategy outlines key actions to address the socioeconomic causes of poor health (social determinants).

4.13    The proposed award of further funding to Alzheimer’s Society is a continuation of funding as a contribution to the Alzheimer’s Society’s costs of previously funded activity. We have identified a need to provide further resource to ensure that the objectives of the work be achieved. Dementia is a cross-cutting issue and the Mayor’s convening powers have the unique potential to support Alzheimer’s Society’s mission and help develop a London approach. The GLA believes that the Alzheimer’s Society, as the leading charity addressing health challenges around dementia, are well placed to achieve the objective mentioned earlier.

4.14    Pan London approach: Part of the funding for Dementia Friendly London will be used for research into barriers to diagnosis and support in Black and Arab communities which will help to support the latter across London. Over 75,000 people have dementia in London and figure is proportionate to convene and leverage pan-London partners.

4.15    This grant supports and enables the application of Alzheimer’s Society’s unique expertise to the context and challenges in London. Without the provision of this grant from the GLA, this London focussed programme would not have happened. The funding is enabling Alzheimer’s Society to meet its objectives which align with those of the GLA. The award of further funding proposed is therefore  the most impactful and logical.

4.16    Given its reach, policy expertise and profile and activity undertaken to date, the Alzheimer’s Society’s project is the most appropriate project charity to pursue the aims and objectives noted above.

4.17    Their work programme focusses on supporting people affected by dementia, including family members and carers, to live well with dementia. We have not identified any negative effects on domestic competition or investment and international trade or investment, related to this grant. Many of the approaches that support people with dementia to live well also benefit a wide range of other Londoners, including those with a physical or cognitive impairment.

4.18    The benefits of the programme have been outlined earlier and no negative effects have been identified in either competition or investment within the United Kingdom or international trade or investment.

Healthy Children 

4.19    This funding will be used to address the policy objective of tackling health inequalities. Many families in the most disadvantaged areas rely on convenience stores for regular shopping and stores near schools in disadvantaged areas are regularly used by children and young people. The GLA’s contribution towards the evaluation is relatively small and therefore proportionate to the policy objective. 

4.20    We are proposing to award funding to Impact on Urban Health (IoUH) towards a jointly funded evaluation of the convenience stores project. IoUH forms part of Guy’s & St Thomas’ charitable foundation and addresses health inequalities by focusing on a few complex health issues that disproportionately impact people living in cities. IoUH has followed its own procurement processes to commission Brightpurpose, the company that will undertake the evaluation, and IoUH will not be retaining any of the GLA funding.  We do not believe there will be any negative effects on competition or investment within the United Kingdom.

Impact assessment and consultations

4.21    Impact assessments have been conducted on the key elements of the programme, as detailed above. 

4.22    The HIS was subject to extensive consultation to inform its development in 2017 and 2018. The work programme has further been informed by community engagement over the last 18 months.   

4.23    There are no known conflicts of interest to note for any of those involved in the drafting or clearance of this decision. 
 

5.1    This Decision seeks approval for the total spend of £492,700 as follows:

•    expenditure of up to £390,000 for the Mental Health Recovery Mission and Thrive LDN work programme for 2023-24, including a £350,000 grant to Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust which serves as the GLA’s financial contribution to Thrive LDN for 2023-24
•    expenditure of a grant of £10,000 from the Baring Foundation in relation to World Mental Health Day 2022, receipt of which was approved in MD2811 
•    expenditure of up to £50,000 grant funding to Alzheimer’s Society in support of the Dementia Friendly London programme 2023-24; and transfer of £22,700 from the Health Inequalities Strategy budget to the Culture and Creative Industries Unit to manage the Dementia Friendly Venues Charter
•    expenditure of £20,000 in 2023-24 towards the Healthy Place, Healthy Weight mission’s evaluation of work with convenience stores in Lambeth.

5.2    This expenditure of £492,700 would be funded from the Health and Wellbeing 2023-24 programme budget lines. £350k would be funded from the Mental Health/Thrive budget, £72,700 from the HIS Implementation budget and the remaining £60k from the other Health and Wellbeing programme budget(s) to be confirmed.

5.3    There is sufficient budget within the Health and Wellbeing team to meet the expenditure of £492,700.
 

6.1    The foregoing sections of this report indicate that:

•    the decisions sought concern the exercise of the GLA’s general powers, falling within the GLA’s statutory powers to do such things falling within its principle purposes in a manner which seeks to promote the improvement of health of persons, health inequalities between persons in Greater London
•    in formulating the proposals in respect of which a decision is sought, officers must comply with the GLA’s related statutory duties to:

 
    pay due regard to the principle that there should be equality of opportunity for all people
    consider how the proposals will promote the improvement of health of persons, health inequalities between persons and to contribute towards the achievement of sustainable development in the United Kingdom
    consult with appropriate bodies.

6.2    In taking any decisions sought, the Mayor must have due regard to the Public Sector Equality Duty –  namely the need to eliminate discrimination, harassment, victimisation and any other conduct prohibited by the Equality Act 2010 and to advance equality of opportunity and foster good relations between persons who share a relevant protected characteristic (race, disability, gender, age, sexual orientation, religion) and persons who do not (section 149 of the Equality Act 2010). To this end, the Mayor should have particular regard to section 5 (above) of this report.

6.3    The Subsidy Control Act 2022 requires that grant funding comply with its subsidy control principles.  The officers have set out at paragraphs 4.6 to 4.22 above how the proposed award of grant funding complies with those principles.

6.4    If the Mayor makes the decisions sought, officers must ensure that:

•    any services, supplies or works required are procured in liaison with TfL Procurement and in accordance with the GLA’s Contracts and Funding Code and contracts are put in place between and executed by the GLA and contractors before commencement of such services
•    the proposed award of grant funding is made fairly, transparently, in accordance with the GLA’s equalities requirements and with the requirements of GLA’s Contracts and Funding Code and funding agreements are put in place between and executed by the GLA and recipients before any commitment to fund is made
•    where such grant funding exceeds £100,000 (in aggregate taking account of previous GLA funding) register the grant on the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy’s Transparency Database.

6.5    In addition, to the extent that the proposals in respect of which decisions are sought involve the making of commitments which extend beyond the current Mayoral term, officers must ensure that the terms of all agreements entered into in respect of the expenditure do not have the effect of fettering the discretion of any successor administration, considering in particular the London elections taking place in May 2024. Accordingly, officers must ensure that all agreements which involve making such commitments include a GLA right to terminate at any point for convenience (at no cost to the GLA) and all such agreements are managed in such a manner, and any deliverables, milestones and/or output requirements are structured so as to mitigate risks of the GLA incurring abortive expenditure (which might be reasonably be taken to fetter, practically, the exercise of such discretion).