Agenda item

The Chief Executive of Citizens Advice South Somerset provided Members with a short presentation of the work of the organisation.  She noted that:

·         They had been open over the Christmas period and were very busy.

·         They had helped to distribute the Somerset Household Support Fund of £250 grants to households who were struggling to meet essential living costs and had received 370 applications in South Somerset.

·         The main advice issues were Universal Credit applications, benefit claims, seeking affordable housing and managing personal debt.

·         There was uncertainty on the funding for debt casework for 2022/23 as the Money and Pension Service had recently advised they were not going to commission regional debt advice as the applications they received did not meet their requirements.

·         There was currently a deficit budget forecast for the following year for the service and some funding schemes were ending or changing.

In response to questions from Members, the Chief Executive for Citizens Advice South Somerset and the Chairman advised:-

·         The service received £34,000 grant funding from SCC public health and they had also awarded £400,000 as a one off grant to provide additional capacity on the Somerset Adviceline.

·         CASS received no funding from the national body but membership allowed them access to insurance and quality of advice audit. 

·         She was not aware that Citizens Advice centres in London received funding to pay for officers rather than volunteers but would check this and confirm with Councillor Hobhouse.  (Subsequent to the meeting, it was confirmed that National Citizens Advice do not make any payments to London City Citizens Advice Centres).

·         Funding for CASS should continue when the new Unitary Authority was established.

·         It would be helpful for SSDC and CASS to work together to prevent large council tax arrears for clients.

·         Housing was a huge issue as some private landlords were selling their rented properties in the area.

·         CASS would use their reserves to keep the service operating for one year while new funding sources were sought but the new Unitary Authority was expected to be a funding provider.  Wessex Water and Western Power Distribution also contributed grant aid to the service.

·         The Somerset Local Government Reorganisation Joint Committee would be discussing funding for the voluntary sector at their next meeting on 4 February 2022.

·         SCC had granted £400,000 as an additional capacity grant to help on the Somerset Adviceline across the county.  The funding was to cover 2 years to June 2023.  In South Somerset it funded a full time employee to supplement the volunteers on the advice line. 

During discussion, the following points were made:

·         The new Unitary Authority should be able to make an arrangement for the future funding of Citizens Advice across Somerset.

·         Debt often had serious mental health consequences which impacted on the health care service but the Unitary Authority was the opportunity to join together on this.

The Chief Executive of SPARK Somerset provided Members with a short presentation of the work of the organisation.  She noted that:

·         The merger of the NHS Trusts in Somerset and the new Unitary Authority were creating opportunities and risks for the voluntary sector and discussions should take place around sustainability for the voluntary sector.

·         Spark helped to support voluntary groups, represented them, ran a volunteers service and helped communities to develop.  They also helped with networking and partnerships between voluntary groups.

·         During the previous 6 months they had supported 95 groups with varying issues.

·         Training continued to be popular, particularly on-line training.

·         Employer led volunteering was popular for the health and well-being of employees as well as benefitting local communities or charities.

·         They had been researching how the pandemic had impacted communities and the voluntary sector and identify what it needed to renew.  The main themes were around care and carers, young people, mental health and well-being, debt, poverty and housing.  The report would be available shortly.

In response to questions, the Chief Executive of SPARK Somerset and the Chairman advised:-

·         Volunteering had moved toward emergency response volunteering and discussions had taken place on how to capture and direct them to other longer term volunteering opportunities such as village halls and established community groups. 

·         Organisations and groups need to think differently about how they use volunteers in the future.

·         The number of under 50’s who access Spark had increased.

·         There was an opportunity with the Local Community Networks in the Unitary Council to reinvigorate volunteering.

During discussion, the following points were made:

·         Long term funding for voluntary organisations help them to strategically plan for the future.

·         The Chard Connect project had helped to bring voluntary organisations together to benefit the community and identify issues like the lack of transport to vaccination clinics.

·         Many village halls in Somerset would not have been built without strong local volunteers. 

The Specialist for Communities advised that the proposal from the previous year’s District Executive meeting was to look at commissioning voluntary sector community support and involve the Scrutiny Committee in that process, but this had been put on hold by the Unitary Council proposal.  It was hoped that there would be a decision on funding the voluntary sector during 2023/24 very shortly. 

The Chairman of the Scrutiny Committee noted that most of their comments had been answered by officers during the presentation, however, it would be useful for Members to have a regular dashboard on a Ward basis on general headlines, themes and emerging trends regarding work cases, in particular those with a rural perspective.  He also noted that council tax debt recovery by SSDC was an issue for CASS and he asked if this was a risk to SSDC.

The Portfolio Holder for Finance and Legal Services confirmed that SSDC sought debt recovery within a support scheme which was due to be discussed under a later agenda item.  SSDC would recover council tax debt from those who could afford to pay but the support scheme was there to help those struggling to pay.

At the conclusion of the debate the Chairman thanked the Chief Executives of CASS and Spark for their work in helping the residents of South Somerset.

The Portfolio Holder for Health and Well-Being also thanked the Chief Executives of CASS and Spark for the work of their organisations in the local community.   He proposed that the inflationary uplift of 2% in the report be increased to 5% because inflation was currently at that level.  He said this would protect the core grant figure and would increase the total funding to £208,687.50.  This would reduce the remaining district-wide voluntary and community sector grants budget to £23,273.

This amended proposal was seconded and unanimously agreed by Members.