Report of the Strategic Director (Neighbourhoods)

This report provides an update on the funding of Community Events and additional information related to applications to the Community Events Fund.

The Committee received a report of the Strategic Director (Neighbourhoods) which provided an update on the funding of Community Events and additional information related to applications to the Community Events Fund.

The report stated that recipients of Community Event Funding support were required to demonstrate a commitment to implementing a range of sustainable event practices as part of the management of their event in order to support the Council's carbon reduction target and work with the Council and partners to support Manchester in accelerating its efforts to encourage all residents, businesses and other stakeholders to take action on climate change.  It also stated that it was a requirement that the Council’s Sustainable Event Guide for Community Events was used as part of the planning, management and monitoring of sustainable practice and that this had been produced to help support community event organisers incorporate good practice into their event planning and delivery.

The main points and themes within the report included:

• Background information on Community Events Funding;
• Community Events Funding Programme 2019/20, including the allocation of funding; and
• 2020/21 Community Events Funding.

Some of the key points that arose from the Committee’s discussions were:

• What was the rationale for the different amounts of funding allocated to each event;
• Were there any other sources of funding which could contribute to these events;
• That it would be useful in future to be provided with the reasons why applications had been declined;
• That some events were being funded every year, meaning that less funding was available to new groups to help them become established; and
• Funding for the Wythenshawe Games.

The Executive Member for Skills, Culture and Leisure reported that the Community Events Fund could be used to fund up to 20% of the overall budget of an event so, where larger amounts had been awarded, these were for higher cost events.  He reported that events could cover the rest of their costs from a range of sources, including other funders, commercial income and sponsorship, and that the Council encouraged groups to try to increase their funding from other sources so that they needed less funding from the Council.  The Events Lead informed Members that  obtaining sustainable funding from other sources could be challenging but that there had been some successes, for example, event organisers obtaining alternative funding from the Arts Council.  He advised Members that, where events had received funding from the Council every year for a number of years, this was because they met the criteria and this had been assessed as being justified. 

The Executive Member for Skills, Culture and Leisure confirmed that information could be provided on the reasons for the declined applications.  He advised the Committee that this Fund was for events which had a citywide remit so one of the reasons for declining applications was that they were for more local events.  He informed Members that in some cases the Council supported unsuccessful groups to build their capacity to enable them to successfully obtain funding in future.  He reported that, following an underspend on the MCRactive budget, this budget had been used to fund the Wythenshawe Games.

Decision

To note the report.