PCD 1255 - Shared Endeavour Fund Call 3 Uplift

PCD 1255 - Shared Endeavour Fund Call 3 Uplift

This decision seeks Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime (DMPC) approval to allocate an additional £125,000 to the funding for Call 3 of the Mayor’s Shared Endeavour Fund. 

The Shared Endeavour Fund is a grants programme for civil society groups that can deliver impactful projects in London that directly counter extremism, offer positive alternatives to vile ideologies, protect Londoners vulnerable to radicalisation and encourage more people to stand up to racism, hate and intolerance. 

Decision PCD 1074 gave approval for the funding of Call 3 of the Shared Endeavour Fund to take place in 2022/23, with an allocated fund budget of £600,000. This decision seeks to increase the total 2022/23 grant allocation to £725,000 as there are further project proposals which will deliver important impact in London against key challenge areas that could be funded through an uplift.  

The additional funding would secure a total of 22 civil society projects that tackle racism, hate, intolerance, extremism and radicalisation across the ideological spectrum. This includes projects working across multiple delivery themes (such as educational, sports and arts based projects) and which challenge multiple harm themes with an array of different beneficiary cohorts across the whole of London.  

The Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime is recommended to:   

0. Approve the allocation of a further £125,000 for Call 3 of the Shared Endeavour Fund, taking the total 2022/23 grant funding budget to £725,000. 

PART I - NON-CONFIDENTIAL FACTS AND ADVICE TO THE DMPC 

1. Introduction and background 

1. The Shared Endeavour Fund (SEF) demonstrates the Mayor’s leadership in tackling racism, hate, intolerance, extremism and radicalisation. 

2. In his Mayoral Manifesto, alongside the Police and Crime Plan, the Mayor recognises the importance of the SEF and committed to funding more civil society projects through this programme.  

3. This uplift in funding will support projects which have been assessed by a moderation panel (made up of MOPAC leads and independent policy area specialists) to be impactful projects that will improve the spread of project themes, beneficiaries and the array of key harms the SEF is countering.   

4. All recommended projects have been through a due diligence process which includes inputs from external stakeholders. The entire project portfolio recommended has been assessed as low risk and highly suitable for Mayoral funding by MOPAC.

5. Call 3 of the SEF, due to be delivered across 2022/23, was approved and allocated a grant allocation of £600,000 through DMPC Decision PCD 1074.  

6. There were 50 project proposals submitted in Call 3 with a total funding request for £1.7 million. The London CVE programme have identified 17 projects which should be funded through Call 3 from the £600,000 allocation. However, there is room within the CVE Programme’s budget for 2022/23 to cater for an uplift in the Call 3 grant pot, and there were a further 5 projects which were assessed of high enough quality and importance that the programme should fund these with an uplift of £125,000. 

7. Issues for consideration  

8. Violent extremism continues to be an enduring threat to Londoners. The UK threat level currently stands at SUBSTANTIAL, meaning a terrorist attack is likely.   

9. Since March 2017, 32 terrorist attacks have been foiled by the police and security services.  

10. In the last reporting period there were more children arrested for TACT offences than ever before.  

11. In the year ending March 2021 there were 124,091 Hate Crimes recorded by the police in England and Wales.  

12. Each Call of the SEF has been significantly oversubscribed, with Call 3 projects requesting a total of £1.7 million (280% of the total available funding allocation).  

13. With a funding pot of £800,000, Call 1 supported 31 projects. Call 2 supported 19 projects with a funding allocation of £600,000. An uplift of £125,000 to a total of £725,000, Call 3 of the Shared Endeavour Fund could support more projects and therefore more direct participants who would benefit from this work, in a wider spread of London areas and challenging a wider array of key priority harms.  

14. The continuation of Shared Endeavour Fund is a 2021 manifesto commitment for the Mayor, stating in his Mayoral Manifesto and the Police and Crime Plan that “we will provide even more grants to projects that counter violent extremism”. 

15. In line with the details in PCD 1074, all final decision-making regarding recommendations to award individual grant awards from this funding uplift will be retained by MOPAC.    

16. Financial Comments  

3.1 This report seeks approval to increase the grant programme fund by £125,000, from £600,000 approved via DMPC Decision PCD1074, to a new grant fund of £725,000.   

3.2 The increase will be funded from the Countering Violent Extremism programme budget for 2022/23 totalling £1,452,092.  

4. Legal Comments  

5. Section 3(6) of the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act 2011 (‘PRSRA’) provides that MOPAC must secure the maintenance of the Metropolitan Police force and secure that the Metropolitan Police force is efficient and effective. Paragraph 7 of Schedule 3 to the PRSRA  provides that MOPAC may do anything which is facilitative of, or conducive or incidental to, the exercise of its functions. Furthermore, MOPAC has powers under section 143 of the Anti-Social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014 to commissioning services and grants that will contribute to securing crime and disorder in London. The proposed expenditure is consistent with MOPAC’s functions under section 3(6) of the PRSRA and section 143 of the Anti-Social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014. 

6. Paragraph 4.8 of the MOPAC Scheme of Delegation and Consent provides that the Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime (DMPC) has delegated authority to approve all bids for grant funding. 

7. Paragraph 4.13 of the MOPAC Scheme of Delegation and Consent provides that the Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime (DMPC) has delegated authority to approve all unforeseen variations and extensions to contracts with an original value of £500,000 or above, when the variation or extension is greater than 10% of the original value and/or is for a period of more than 12 months. 

8. Legal advice has not been sought for this Decision. The authority for the DMPC to approve this Decision is clear in the scheme of delegation and this Decision is not considered to be novel in nature nor contentious. 

9. Commercial Issues   

10. No commercial issues 

11. Public Health Approach  

12. A public health approach is rooted in good multi-agency working and close working with communities, focused on prevention, and informed by the systematic use of evidence.  

13. The programme report, ‘A Shared Endeavour,’ recognised that the first line of defence in tackling racism, hate, intolerance and extremism is London’s diverse communities, but they are often under resourced to stand up and challenge extremism. The Shared Endeavour Fund Call 3 will provide an opportunity to continue this community-based, preventative work and an uplift in the budget will enable more projects to be funded for 2022/23.  

14. GDPR and Data Privacy  

15. MOPAC will adhere to the Data Protection Act (DPA) 2018 and ensure that any organisations who are commissioned to do work with or on behalf of MOPAC are fully compliant with the policy and understand their GDPR responsibilities.   

16. Equality Comments 

17. MOPAC is required to comply with the public sector equality duty set out in section 149(1) of the Equality Act 2010. This requires MOPAC to have due regard to the need to eliminate discrimination, advance equality of opportunity and foster good relations by reference to people with protected characteristics. The protected characteristics are: age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex and sexual orientation.  

18. Challenging racism, hate, intolerance and extremist ideologies which push supremacy and deny the rights of others sits at the very heart of the Shared Endeavour Fund and helps to protect ethnic and religious minorities alongside other protected characteristics.  

19. Many projects specifically seek to work with under-represented groups who are often targeted by extremists, whilst also considering the intersectionality of ethnicity, religion, gender and sexuality.  

20. All successful applicants must support MOPAC and the GLA’s equality, diversity and inclusion practices and policies.   

21. Background/supporting papers 

22. Appendix 1 Decision PCD 1074