As Burngreave New Deal for Communities enters its final 30 months of operation, the Board has been taking a serious look at its financial position. The need to do this was partly provoked by a notification from the Department of Communities and Local Government, our funders, that because of national shortfalls on the New Deal programme, they would be taking £881,000 from Burngreave over the final two years of the programme, a fact we reported in the last edition of the Messenger. The review was also necessary though as part of good programme management .
So, at the September meetings of the Partnership Board detailed financial and performance information was provided to show the current level of planned expenditure compared to funding available. Because planned spending was higher than the money available, the Board have had to make some difficult decisions about how to make the two balance. The Board is going to continue to look for additional funding to plug some of the gap but some reductions have been necessary to bring spending more in line with money available.
The principles behind the following reductions were always:-
Every attempt has been made to focus reductions on BNDfC managed projects and minimise impact on external projects.
Where external projects have been affected, recommendations have been based on a parity of treatment and,
Good housekeeping measures have been strengthened.
For information the reductions agreed were:-
Further reduce the staff team
Reduce costs on IT and telephone provision
Reduce Partnership Board Members allowances
All projects running in 2009-2011 will have their funding reduced by 10%
Study Support project will only be funded until July 2009
Look at transferring the Information Vehicle to another community user before the end of our programme
Buy cheaper display cabinets for the Vestry Hall
Look to save money by sub letting Harleston Street and moving staff team to Forum House
The Board also agreed a number of measures to reduce demand on NDC funds which were to
Incur no further costs on community elections
Not progress the Community Development and Greenspace Commissioning Frameworks
No longer require individual projects to undertake end of project evaluations but contribute to a programme level evaluation which will bring in some economies of scale
No longer carry forward underspends on the Small Grants Scheme
The Board will meet again in February 2009 to see how effective the above decisions have been in reducing our funding gap and to determine whether any other remedial action is required.