Agenda item

Scrutiny Committee Feedback: Melton Community Lottery

Melton Community Lottery

 

Cabinet AGREED that efforts be made to increase participation within existing resources and that officers undertake a review proportionate with the level of investment in the service and report the findings to Cabinet after 12 months, such that a decision can be made regarding the ongoing impact and value of the service.

Melton Community Lottery

 

Councillor Pat Cumbers, Chair of Scrutiny Committee gave an overview of the report, the purpose of which was to provide feedback and recommendations to Cabinet, following a Committee meeting on 7 January, where Committee Members were provided with a breakdown of the costs associated with running the Melton Community Lottery.

 

Referring to Appendix A of the report, which detailed Senior Leadership Team’s response to the Committee’s recommendations, Councillor Cumbers commented that:

·         An up to date membership figure would have been helpful for this meeting.

·         The main problem faced by the Council in administration of the Community Lottery was successful retention of members (in 2019, there had been 82 new members but 187 members had left) and this problem had not been fully addressed.

·         Indirect costs relating to administration of the Community Lottery should not be ignored.  They were described in the official audited records as ‘actual costs’ and it was concerning that they were not accurate, indicating that other costs could be inaccurate as well.  Taking into account the indirect costs, it appeared that costs to the public exceeded the contribution towards the community grants through the Community Lottery.

·         Scrutiny’s recommendations were fair and appropriate for consideration by Cabinet.

 

Councillor Robert Child, a Member on Scrutiny’s review of the Melton Community Lottery highlighted that:

·         The total expenditure on the Community Lottery for the last three financial years had been £143k.  Income over those years had been £43k, leaving a balance of £100k payable by tax payers.  Of this, an average of £30k represented support costs.

·         Members had previously identified a lack of promotion on the Community Lottery but in addition, opportunities to promote had been missed (i.e. including promotional leaflets with council tax bills had been suggested but not actioned).

·         The information provided to Scrutiny Committee on 7 January did not correlate and had to be taken on trust.

·         Other councils were raising substantial amounts for good causes and this Council should be doing the same.

·         The Committee’s recommendation to achieve 448 members by December 2020, was reasonable.

 

The Director for Corporate Services advised that the indirect costs (support charges) were effectively an overhead such as finance and legal.  Savings in this area would not be made by ending the Community Lottery because the charges would still be in place.  It was accepted and that indirect costs may not always be as accurate as they could be but the calculation of these charges did not affect the ultimate cost to the tax payer.  Moving forward, there were some changes in the way the Council accounted for these charges, reducing complexity and this may help with the clarity of the budgets and service areas in 2021/22.

 

[Councillor Higgins left the meeting]

 

Councillor Alison Freer-Jones, Portfolio Holder for Climate, Access and Engagement thanked Councillor Cumbers, the Scrutiny Committee and the People Manager for their work on this issue.  She gave a summary of the objectives of the Community Lottery (the opportunity for community organisations to raise money to support their initiatives, the Council supporting the Community Grants Fund, protection for Council supported organisations if Council services needed to be reduced).

 

Councillor Free-Jones commented that there was a need to balance the benefit to the community against the cost for the Council to continue to resource the Community Lottery but it should not be ended as a result of membership figures or ticket sales.

 

Councillor Freer-Jones advised that while Members may consider that resources currently concentrated on the Community Lottery could be re-focused to other areas of the Council, this would likely result in an increased pressure on Council funds, as there would no longer be a contribution to the Community Grants budget.  Although income had not been as high as anticipated, the Lottery benefited the community and further work could be done to increase its success.

 

[Councillor Higgins re-entered the meeting]

 

Councillor Freer-Jones proposed the following amendment to the recommendations of Scrutiny Committee:

 

‘That efforts are made to increase participation within existing resources and that officers undertake a review proportionate with the level of investment in the service and report the findings to Cabinet after 12 months such that a decision can be made regarding the ongoing impact and value of the service’.

 

Councillor Orson thanked Councillors Freer-Jones, Cumbers and Child and members of Scrutiny Committee for their work on this issue.

 

During discussion, the following points were noted:

 

·         Efforts to increase engagement with the Community Lottery needed to be greatly improved.  All feedback received to date highlighted that the Council had not given proper focus to marketing and promotion.

·         Lack of promotion had been due to a shortage of suitable resources and possibly a small marketing budget would help with this.  It was currently being promoted well via social media.  Councillors, in their roles as community leaders should actively promote the community lottery, sharing it with the organisations they were connected to in order to benefit the community.

·         There was concern over the inaccuracy of indirect costs (support charges) relating to the Community Lottery and whether other reported support charges could also be inaccurate.

·         A Member commented that they did not feel that the information previously provided to Cabinet on Lottery expenditure enabled them to fully understand how money was being spent.

·         The Community Lottery had helped good causes within the community but the costs were not adequately detailed.  Members were hopeful that directing efforts to increasing income over the next year would improve its success.

 

Cabinet AGREED That efforts be made to increase participation within existing resources and that officers undertake a review proportionate with the level of investment in the service and report the findings to Cabinet after 12 months, such that a decision can be made regarding the ongoing impact and value of the service.