FRM(21)31 Melton Trust Report

FRM(21)31

COVERING NOTE TO THE MELTON TRUST REPORT

The report appended below was prepared by the two Trustees nominated by Melton Parish Council after a meeting with me on 26 May, following consideration of an initial report by Full Council on 17 March. The report reproduces the Minute of that meeting on 17 March which summarises what was agreed by Councillors. The intention is for this new paper to be considered by Full Council at its September meeting, but I thought it important for it to be considered by Finance Employment and Risk Management (FERM) Committee first.

The intention behind the detailed proposals is to shift the responsibility for all administrative functions relating to the Trust to the Council. The Trustees will continue to manage the Trust; there is no intention for it to become a Council managed Trust; but with Council staff carrying out all routine duties in relation to its functions. Overall the paper estimates that the work could take on average up to 57 hours a year, or an average of 4.75 hours a month.

Councillors are invited to consider this proposal.

Issues to be considered (which link up as well with the report on the closed part of the agenda on staffing arrangements after 1 January 2021) include:

• The need to seek agreement to reimburse the Council for its services (including overheads) unless the Council specifically wishes to make a grant to the Trust (under s137 Local Government Act 1972)
• To effectively grant aid the Trust the Council would have to be satisfied that the Trust operates for the benefit of the inhabitants of the parish and that the expenditure is commensurate with the sum expended.
• The need to have a clear legal agreement between the Council and the Trust to cover any arrangement for services to be provided, which would also have to cover the situation where because of staff vacancies etc. the function could not be delivered
• The need to incorporate additional duties into employees’ contracts of employment, subject to agreement with postholders
• The need to consider the capacity of staffing resources given the increase in workload generally – and also the fact that the Council is limited in terms of the number of hours that its staff can work by its staffing budget which is already about 43% of budgeted expenditure.

William Grosvenor

Clerk and Executive Officer to the Council

22 July 2021

THE MELTON TRUST

REPORT FOR MELTON PARISH COUNCIL

SUMMER 2021

Background

We presented a paper (copy attached) to the council earlier this year outlining the problems the trustees were experiencing and ways we thought the Parish Council might be able to help.

To summarise, this came down to providing publicity and a link with the community (via the web site) and some clerking support.

It was agreed at the meeting that the council:

1. Recognised the valuable contribution the Trust makes to local residents
2. Noted the challenges the Trust has in reaching individuals and families in need
3. The council was willing to provide more support and that the clerk would liaise with the Trust to articulate their requirements in more detail and jointly develop a proposal, incorporating ay associated costs, for consideration by the Council.

Action
The two trustees nominated by the Council, Tony Thompson and Katy Martin, met with the Parish Clerk on the 26^th May and discussed the requirements in detail.  It was agreed that we would produce another paper for the Council to be tabled at the September meeting.

We considered a table of activities undertaken by the trustees and quickly identified those that needed to be done by trustees and those that could be actioned by a clerk.  A list of these can be found in Appendix A.

Request
In order that the Melton Trust can continue to operate in its present form, we are asking for the Parish Council to provide support for the Trust but we are not asking for the Council to take it over or to take on any of the Trust’s responsibilities.

The support we would require is basically a clerking service to cover the administration tasks and the accounting routines needed to run a Charitable Trust.  If possible it would also include providing an electronic payment facility for applicants where paying for an item by cheque is not possible.

We estimate this would amount to, on average, a maximum of one day a month in total.

Appendix A