Shared Endeavour Fund Call 2 Uplift

This decision seeks Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime (DMPC) approval to allocate a further £200,000 for Call 2 of the Shared Endeavour Fund.

The Shared Endeavour Fund is a small grants programme for civil society groups in London who wish to deliver projects which directly counter extremism, offer positive alternatives to vile ideologies and encourage others to stand up to hate and intolerance.

Decision PCD 903 gave approval for the funding of Call 2 of the Shared Endeavour Fund to take place in 2021/22, with an allocated grant pot of £400,000.

This decision, PCD 1032, seeks to increase the total 2021/22 funding pot to £600,000 and secure approximately 20 civil society projects to tackle racism, hate, intolerance, extremism and radicalisation.

The Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime is recommended to:

• approve the allocation of a further £200,000 for Call 2 of the Shared Endeavour Fund, taking the total 2021/22 funding pot to £600,000.

• Give delegated authority for the Director of Strategy to vary the grant fund management contract of Groundwork London by £20,000.

1. Introduction and background

1.1. Between 2018 and 2019 the Mayor’s Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) programme delivered the most comprehensive city-wide engagement ever in this policy area. It found that the majority of Londoners look to the Mayor for leadership in countering hate, intolerance, extremism and radicalisation.

1.2. A key finding of the report was that City Hall should deliver a grants programme (which stands aside from existing Government countering extremism strategies) to civil society groups delivering projects which directly counter extremism, offer positive alternatives to vile ideologies and encourage others to stand up to hate and intolerance.

1.3. In 2020/21 the Mayor’s CVE Programme partnered with Google.org to deliver the Shared Endeavour Fund (SEF), an £800,000 small grants programme which supported more than 30 civil society projects across London.

1.4. Decision PCD 903 gave approval for the strategy of grant awarding for Call 2 of the SEF, with an allocated grant pot of £400,000 from the Countering Violent Extremism programme budget.

1.5. Applications for Call 2 of the SEF opened on 22 June 2021, with £400,000 available for projects. The deadline for submitting applications has now ended and projects are set to be selected early September to begin delivery in October 2021.

1.6. This decision sets out a request to increase the funding pot for Call 2 by up to £200,000.

2. Issues for consideration

2.1. The Shared Endeavour Fund demonstrates the Mayor’s leadership in tackling racism, hate, intolerance, extremism and radicalisation, and this uplift will allow for more civil society-led projects to undertake this work in 2021/22.

2.2. There is a gap in funding for the civil society organisations who wish to undertake this work in London. Funding from philanthropy can be sparse and the grant funding strand of the Government’s ‘Building a Stronger Britain Together’ programme is not currently open.. Moreover, in the current fiscal climate local authorities often choose not to put resources towards these non-statutory initiatives.

2.3. With a funding pot of £800,000, Call 1 supported 31 projects. Call 2 is expected to support approximately 12-15 projects, however, with an uplift to £600,000 this would be closer to 20 projects supported.

2.4. Final reports from SEF Call 1 have indicated that these projects reached approximately 25,000 direct participants in London.

2.5. Call 1 of the SEF was oversubscribed by more than 100% with a total funding request of £1.7m. Call 2 closed for applications on 5 August 2021 and was oversubscribed by over 200% with a total funding request of £1.4m

2.6. An uplift of £200,000 to a total of £600,000 would go some way to bridging the drop in total funding from Call 1, and will likely help to support another 6-10 projects.

2.7. The continuation of Shared Endeavour Fund is a 2021 manifesto commitment for the Mayor, stating that “we will provide even more grants to projects that counter violent extremism”

2.8. Decision PCD 903 allocated up to £80,000 to commission a provider for the grant fund management. £40,000 of this is currently allocated to SEF Call 2 in line with the £400,000 fund pot, and there remains up to £40,000 to vary this contract, and it would be expected that only up to £20,000 would be required to cover this proposed £200,000 increase of the funding pot.

2.9. In line with the details in PCD 903, all final decision-making regarding recommendations to award individual grant awards from this funding uplift will be retained by MOPAC.

3. Financial Comments

3.1. The total budget requirement for this additional work totals £200,000. This will be funded from existing approved funding within the Countering Violent Extremism programme budget for 2021/22.

4. Legal Comments

4.1. 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.

4.2. 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 offers made of grant funding and the award of all grants (including approval of strategy prior to award of grants).

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

5. Public Health Approach

5.1. 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. 

5.2. 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 2 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 2021/22.

6. GDPR and Data Privacy

6.1. 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.

7. Equality Comments

7.1. 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.

7.2. The chosen projects will be required to have due regard to the protected characteristics of the people and communities relevant to this piece of work. MOPAC will work with the successful providers to ensure their approaches to delivering this work are done within all equality legislation.  

8. Background/supporting papers

None.