Community Relations Council

Minutes of the BA/CRC Peace III Steering Committee

Theme 1.2

1.    Minutes from Previous Meeting

The minutes were agreed as presented.

2.    Matters Arising

 None that aren’t covered elsewhere in the agenda.

 3.    PEACE III Overview Report – Applications and Allocations

 Staff provided an overview of progress to date:

Strand 2:

27 projects have been approved, with €8.7m allocated to date. A further 6 projects requesting €2.8m will be considered today. One further assessment - WAVE’s ‘Trauma Training Learning Pathway’ (worth c€1.7M) will be presented at the next meeting. This was delayed due to the Economic Appraisal not being delivered on time as well as not cross-referencing organisational capacity to deliver planned work and addressing issues of possible duplication of costs with another bid.

24 LOOs have issued to date, all of which have been accepted and returned by the project promoters.

Strand 3:

28 projects have been approved worth €13.4mand all LOOs have issued, been accepted and returned.

 4.    Strand 1 Update: Addressing Legacy and Truth in Public Memory

Strand 1 closed for applications on 29 May 2009.  There have been 26 applications received with a monitory value of bids reaching c£31m.  Of the 26 received, there have been 9 withdrawals as part of the initial assessment process.  Many of the projects that have withdrawn will have the opportunity to apply for Small Grants under this Strand when it opens in due course.  The total value of those withdrawn is c£2.4m. These projects were not strategic in terms of their approach and were smaller, more locality-specific type projects.

The remaining 17 under assessment are:

Storytelling:2 projects have applied, requesting c£2.9m

Archiving:10 projects have applied, requesting c£18.2m.

Broadcasting: 5 projects have applied, requesting c£8.4m.

Staff reported that the bids have been of a lesser quality/standard than that originally hoped. None appear to deliver projects to the exact specifications of the call for applications. There is a considerable amount of duplication of proposed activity, target groups and subject matter. The bids are very N.I. focussed.  At present staff are meeting with all groups to seek clarifications on any issues pertaining to their bids. Committee requested that staff focus on outcomes of proposed work when considering these bids.

The main challenges for staff are:

·        Time required to get projects to the appropriate level for consideration without raising expectations with promoters;

·        Dealing with the competitiveness and duplication (criteria, scoring, fairness, expertise);

·        Achieving the Consortium and the Programmes aims and objectives, as per our tender with SEUPB; and

·        To set and achieve a realistic timeframe in order to assess the remaining applications that will include Economic Appraisals.

Assessments will be presented to Steering Committee at the October meeting for consideration.

Committee sought clarification from the SEUPB regarding the 26 week turnaround timescale, in particular if it was possible to extend the timescale due to the many and varied clarifications which are required and because staff were trying to encourage collaborative working amongst applicants. Adrian McNamee reported that more time could be allowed to ensure that good, solid applications could be brought forward and that he had no difficulties increasing timelines to help partnership working.

5.    Strand 2 Assessments

All decisions and associated comments are recorded on the Decision Grid.

It was agreed that both WAVE applications will be considered together at the next meeting due to the Economic Appraisal for WAVE’s ‘Trauma Training Learning Pathway’ project being received late.  Committee felt that for consistency, they should be presented together in line with the way other bids (FAIR and South East Fermanagh Foundation) were considered.

Additional general points raised:

Committee members were unhappy with quality and clarity of the economic appraisals. Members felt that the appraisals did not aid the decision making process and noted that the majority of them arrived after the set and agreed deadline. Members agreed that the appraisals failed to clarify the capacity of organisations to deliver the projects and noted that many were submitted without Executive Summaries. They were very dissatisfied with the appraisals not being delivered on time and not delivering on agreed terms of reference.  Members also noted that assessments have had to be deferred in order to seek clarity on economic appraisals.

Consortium staff agreed to put an agenda item on policies for economic appraisals for the next Committee Meeting

6.    AOB

Date of next meeting:

Pobal Offices, Monaghan, 29^th October at 10am.

SUMMARY GRID

Consortium Steering Committee Theme 1.2

Wednesday 2^nd September 2009

SIGNED:_____________________________________  DATE:________________________

(Chairperson)