Neighbourhood Capital Fund
23/10/24
A new scheme which will give communities more of a say in how part of the council’s budget is spent in their area could be in place from next financial year.
The Neighbourhood Capital Fund would replace the current arrangements for allocating the capital element of the Community Regeneration Fund (CRF).
Mark Flynn, convener of the council’s city governance committee said: “Getting more people involved in decisions on how money for building, repairing and creating infrastructure in their communities is spent is an important part of creating an empowered and active city.
“While the current system has served the city well for many years and the volunteers who have given their time have improved the lives of people in the most disadvantaged communities, moving away from a fixed group to a broader model of participation allows us to meet our new obligations including supporting the voices of children and young people.
“The current pool of volunteers will continue to carry out work through distribution of the revenue part of CRF.”
For the past 20 years the Lochee, Strathmartine, Coldside, Maryfield, East End and North East wards have had their own Community Regeneration Forum of up to 15 elected local community representatives who allocate a mixture of capital and revenue funding through a grant application and assessment process.
West End and The Ferry have different arrangements and the new scheme will not apply there.
Funding totalling:
£62,600 for Coldside;
£67,600 for East End;
£65,100 for Lochee;
£22,500 for Maryfield;
£50,100 for North East; and
£40,100 Strathmartine will be made available.
Several strict criteria must be met by applicants before they can receive an allocation including being a charity or constituted community group (including those partnering with Dundee City Council) and it must be for capital spending of not less than £6000.
Following best practice for Participatory Budgeting the new Neighbourhood Capital Fund will involve the community at each stage of three-step process:
idea generation;
idea filtering; and
decision making.
If the city governance committee approves the report on Monday (October 28) a timetable for implementation will be put in place starting with a process of ideas generation from different community stakeholder groups in November leading to a public vote next spring with the money being spent no later than March 2027.
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