Joined-up village halls

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Eight months after the launch of the trail-blazing joint distributor pilot scheme to fund community buildings, Jane Taylor catches up with progress

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The difficulty and bureaucracy involved in getting lottery funding for multipurpose community buildings has been one of the most persistent complaints from local groups and MPs over the years. So the launch of a pilot scheme last September involving three distributors in the West Midlands (arts, sports and Community Fund) was heralded as very welcome, if somewhat overdue.

The three boards had in fact had a joint steering group looking into the problem for two years: the same group is now overseeing the 18-month trial programme. Nikki Clews is the Community Buildings Coordinator, responsible for running the trial. She is based with the Community Fund, which has agreed to host the scheme’s administration, and which is also putting up the lion’s share of the £2m budget. This splits up into: CF, £1.36m (68%); Sport England, £0.38m (20%) and Arts Council of England, £0.25m (12.5%). These proportions, Clews says, reflect the pattern of village hall applications which tend to be mainly for general community use with an element of arts and/or sports usage. ‘There will be financial reviews in June and September to look at the pattern of demand,’ Clews says. This is important because the joint scheme does not have the luxury of a single pot: the arts element of a project comes from ACE’s chunk of funding, sports from Sport England and so on (legal reasons, apparently). It is therefore possible that one of the three funding pots may be exhausted before the others, although Clews confirms that to date by far the largest proportion of demand has been for general-purpose community activities.

She also insists on talking to potential applicants ahead of sending a form out, to check their eligibility and redirect their inquiry if necessary. For the purposes of the pilot, the three boards have agreed to limit applicants to those who meet general CF criteria, which rules out requests from parish councils and schools. And applicants must prove their need in at least two of the three areas of arts, sports and community use. Single-purpose projects are redirected to the relevant board to pick up.

The three boards have established four joint priorities: BME groups, disabled people and their carers, broadening community participation, and people in areas of social or economic disadvantage. Clews advises applicants that they stand a better chance if they meet at least one of the four criteria, but if they don’t their application is not rejected. The criteria will be applied only when demand threatens to exceed available funding.

The team has sent out nearly 600 application packs in seven months, and has had back 25 applications, of which the first two were approved in March, and another two in April. A joint grant-making committee – one officer and one regional committee member from each distributor – will meet every two months. Clews thinks she might receive 150 or more applications during the trial: ‘A lot of people have said to me that they’ve been waiting for something like this.’ An external evaluator will produce an interim report and then a final verdict on the trial in late 2004. Even assuming it is successful in cutting red tape and mopping up the discontents of groups such as Inkberrow Community Council (see box, left), the biggest question-mark hanging over a national roll-out of this scheme will be the fate of the Community Fund and knock-on effects of the shake-up of lottery distribution. 

For application forms for the community buildings trial programme contact Nikki Clews or Manjeet Kaur on 0121 200 3500. www.community-fund.org.uk

The first award
Inkberrow Community Council’s village hall extension was the first project approved under the trial scheme. Stella Wallis, the chairman, told Jane Taylor how it happened

‘Inkberrow is a large village, with a population of nearly 3,000, about 12 miles from Worcester. The village raised funds in 1951-52 in memory of the fallen of two world wars, to provide a public playing field and a hall. The Community Council manages and runs it, while the parish council is the custodian trustee. ‘We applied and got the maximum £100,000. It’s going towards a small extension for a resource centre/meeting room, disabled toilets and other updating so the hall complies with the disability act, and we’re converting the current toilet area for storage. Altogether we’ve got £236,000 now out of the £254,000 we need, so we’re not far off.
‘Originally We applied to the Community Fund last year for £248,000 towards a bigger extension. We didn’t fit the criteria though and they said our proposal wasn’t good value for money. ‘We didn’t talk to the CF before making the first application, but went to a briefing interview last August to see why we failed. They did inform us that Hereford and Worcestershire had plenty of funding, so it was not a priority. I was very upset and annoyed at the amount of work that went into this application. Community First [a Malvern-based voluntary sector umbrella agency] lobbied all the MPs and district and county councillors, which is why the Community Buildings trial programme was set up, in my opinion. The rural areas weren’t in the picture at all: we’re being discriminated against.

‘Community First said we should apply again, so I got the pack. We had to prove two out of three kinds of use, so we went for arts and community. The application went in early November and we got the result on March 8. We were led to believe it was going to be quicker than the first application but it isn’t. ‘I’d advise anyone thinking about this scheme to talk to the lottery people to make sure you fit the criteria first. Also, you need to make sure your community is backing you: do your village survey, meet with your public and be prepared to amend your ideas. ‘The community buildings scheme really suits us. There is great demand out there and it gives encouragement to the voluntary sector.’