Agenda item

To hear the Call-In of any decisions made at the Cabinet meeting prior to this meeting or made by Cabinet Members, other Council Committees or a delegated officer and published within five working days of this meeting.

Members should bring their Cabinet agenda to the meeting.

Members should consider any other decisions published in the five working days before this meeting.

The purpose of this meeting is to decide whether to refer back any decision to the decision maker.

Members gave consideration to the Cabinet reports of 16 December 2010 and after careful consideration Members decided not to call-in any decision made by the Cabinet at their meeting.

However further clarification was requested on the following Cabinet item:

Cabinet Agenda Item 7 - Grants to Voluntary Organisations 2011/12 Financial Year

Members requested further information on the women's group grants, namely in relation to whether there is any agreement / understanding in place between the Hillingdon Women's Centre who are to receive increased funding and the Hillingdon Asian Women's group and Hillingdon Somali Women's group, as to how the funds are to be allocated. 

[Subsequent to the meeting, officers provided the following response:

In preparing the recommendations for financial assistance for 2011/12 it was acknowledged that the Council was no longer able to support the same range of organisations as it has done in previous years. 

The recommendation was to remove the core funding for the Hillingdon Asian Women’s Group and the Somali Women’s Group and to increase the funding to the Hillingdon Women’s centre. The rationale being that the Council should not be supporting three organisations providing similar type of services but rather encourage collaboration and to support the Women's centre as the organisation affords the potential to deliver the widest range of services to all women in the borough. 

To clarify, the recommendation was for funding to be committed to Hillingdon Women's centre; it will not be re-allocated via the Women's centre to either the Asian Women's group or the Somali Women's Group.

There have been several meetings between officers, and representatives of the three Women's groups to discuss closer collaboration, and whilst at the time of writing no formal agreement has been reached, the following is an extract of a letter received from Hillingdon Women's centre on 6th December which, highlights the nature and direction of discussions to date.

'Hillingdon Women's Centre are writing to you to express their desire to work towards becoming a partnership with Hillingdon Asian women's Group and the Hillingdon Somali Women's Group in the near future.

We would expect strong support from each other in the work that we do as individual organisations and to work together as an equal partnership. We would want to recognise each others strengths, and aid the development of each others organisations, with reference to our weaker aspects, in a women only supportive partnership. We would expect to learn a great deal from the development of this partnership.

As a group we would wish to achieve a co-ordinated delivery of diverse services for women from all wards of the London Borough of Hillingdon.

HWC would potentially like to share each others venues to deliver the following:

a)            Domestic violence support

b)           Legal advice

c)             Computer training

d)         Workshops and courses e.g. What about me, increased employability via volunteering for women who have or are experiencing isolation, depression, mental ill health or domestic violence.

We would support women from ethnic groups to achieve increased access to and targeted outcomes from local services.

We would value the chance to explore savings and efficiencies from areas such as joint purchasing, accountancy and other back office functions.

We look forward to developing this potential partnership with the other two groups, utilising the best support we can engage, to ensure that it is a partnership that is sustainable and long lasting. After this potential partnership work is completed between the three organisations, we hope to further develop a network with other women's organisations in the borough.'

Officers will continue to work with the three organisations and offer support where appropriate to facilitate long term partnership working between the organisations.”]

In relation to Cabinet Agenda Item 8 - Borough Local Implementation Plan & Submission to Transport for London, Members asked that in Appendix 2 to the report, Heathrow Airport Consultative Committee be added to the proposed list of consultees for the Local Implementation Plan.

Resolved -    

1.      That the decisions made by Cabinet at their meeting on 16 December 2010 be endorsed and noted and no call-in be made of any decision. 

2.    That officers be asked to provide responses to the issues outlined above.