The agenda and all meeting papers are available here.
Digital Inclusion
The report shows progress with the digital inclusion work managed through the Libraries Service. Being digitally excluded is often felt by people with other exclusions. People who were digital included now cannot pay data charges so are excluded again. Libraries do provide free data and have helped over 2500 residents over the last two years. There is particularly an issue with digital exclusion in North Manchester which MCC will look to address.
MCC have a scheme to receive digital equipment which a company then repurposes, and they are then distributed to residents. This needs to be advertised further. Only 243 people have applied for the voter ID certificate across Manchester. MCC have been sluggish with communicating the need for people to have ID. Hopefully the digital exclusion work and work within libraries will help with this. There is a pilot digital device project with the Bread and Butter Thing in Wythenshawe with 50-60 devices.
Public Sector Equality Duty
This report gives an update on the evidence of how MCC comply with their equality objectives as a commissioner and provider of services. This includes monitoring demographics and matching to census information. Highlights include the OMVCS funding and use of equality impact assessments. Next steps include going beyond MCC's statutory duties, strengthening governance, digital knowledge and insight, and developing a measurement framework.
Our Manchester VCS Funding
It was a difficult process and there would be winners and losers. The funding had been kept at previous levels to show MCC's commitment to the sector. There would also be an extra £2m to the Supporting Communities Fund (two years) to fund 17 extra groups. Thanks were given to all who applied and to the panel for their work assessing the bids. There was an acknowledge of pressures on VCSE organisations from increased costs and demands. 212 organisations applied for £11m in funding with £2.4m available. The successful 43 organisations were currently going through the due diligence process. There would also be a £100k development fund per year to help organisations to develop, including within areas of lower presence of VCSE organisations or areas with a lower level of successful bids. It was also mentioned that this was only one strand of funding and there was a partnership to look at funding from a range of sources. It had been checked that organisations receiving funding weren’t already receiving funding for the same work by MCC and the Council tried to guard against scoring bids higher just based on the quality of the bid. Information was requested about the protective characteristics of the people to be supported but not for staff and volunteers in the organisation itself. An annual report will be produced for each year of the programme.
There were a range of comments and criticisms made by councillors. I would advise to view the recording for a full view of these. A meeting will be arranged with Cllr Midgley and the Committee to discuss the comments raised.