Grants Overview and Scrutiny Sub-Committee - Tuesday 27 January 2026, 7:00pm - Wandsworth Council Webcasting

Grants Overview and Scrutiny Sub-Committee
Tuesday, 27th January 2026 at 7:00pm 

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Are you ready?
Good evening everyone and welcome to this meeting.
My name is Councillor Annan and I'm the chair of the grant overview and scrutiny subcommittee.
Members of the committee, I will now call your names in alphabetical order.
Please switch on your microphone to confirm your attendance.
Councillor Daniel Hamilton. Good evening, present.
Councillor Lindsay Aigis. Good evening, present.
Councillor Norman Marshall. Present.
Councillor Jack Mayacross. Present.
Councillor Jorigbe?
Present.
Councillor Steve Worrall?
Present.
Apologies have been received from Councillor Angela Graham.
We have officers present who will introduce themselves as they address the committee.
Agenda items, declaration of interests.

1 Declaration of Interests

Are there any declaration of either pecuniary or pecuniary, other, or non -registrable interest?
If so, please declare any interest quoting the item and paper number in which you have
interest in describing the nature of your interest, including whether or not you will
taking part in them.
I've got one.
Where is it?
What is it?
It was Chestnut Grove, just because my son goes there.
So I'll sit that one out.
Thank you.
Any other person again?
All right, so also to declare that I'm also
involved in KLSO when paper number I'll go out for that. Thank you.
Does the committee agree the minutes of the previous meeting held on 6 November

2 Minutes - 6th November 2025

2025 can be signed as a correct record? Before me still introduce the reports.

3 Wandsworth Grant Fund, Round 31 (Paper No. 26-18)

Before she introduced the reports, given the volume of application received in
After I read out the names of each organisation in 10, could I suggest that members indicate
if an introduction is required and if there is no question, if not we will proceed to
straight to vote, to vote or recommendation.
Is that agreed?
Good.
All right.
Can I ask Mr. to introduce the report?
Thank you.
Thank you.
Harriet Steele, voluntary sector partnership manager.
So today we're looking at round 31 of the Wandsworth Grant Fund.
We received 51 applications and of those 39 were eligible and have been considered for funding.
Those 39 were requesting 315 ,556 pounds and 52 pence.
And we're recommending awards to 17 organisations for
total of 141 ,000 pounds, 108 pence.
Currently this year through the ones the grant fund we've already awarded a
hundred and fifty nine thousand four hundred and twenty seven pounds and the
sixty five thousand and seventy three pounds remaining so we're looking to
utilise that budget along with funding through the Wandsworth Community Fund,
which is a separate endowment fund which we usually pull into this third round of the Wandsworth Grant Fund.
And that is just over 20 ,000 pounds available.
And additionally, we're looking in using just over 55 and
a half thousand pounds of funding that has come through an uplift to the fund, through the cost of living fund.
So with that we can cover the recommendations in the paper today.
So we will go through the recommendations, but we've got 39 eligible applications and we're recommending 17.
All right, council ladies.
Thank you, chair, and thank you, Ms. Steele.
Just got one quick question around the SO83A.
First of all, I just wanted to say thank you.
I appreciate you've taken on board all the comments we've made in the past about having
an extra member of staff review all the grants that are coming through.
But I appreciate that this is, we're looking to hire an officer for three years.
And my understanding is we're going to be, we could potentially lose quite a lot of funding in the next few years.
And the grants pot could potentially, we could potentially have a much smaller amount of money that we can
an award to charities and the voluntary sector.
So I just wanted to put that on record that in three years time or two years time,
we may be in a very different financial situation.
Thank you.
Any other question?
All right, should we go into the papers now?
All right, so paper number one, so it's amplify as CIC.
Do we have any questions?
Do you want us to take it to votes?
Is it agreed?
All right.
So, number two on the list is at best CIC.
Any questions? Agreed? Number three on the list is about the super friendly networking network.
Sorry. Any questions? Okay. All right. Then Councillor Warrow. I'm happy with this with
To agree to this decision, it would be nice to go back to them and see how we can help
them make applications to other funding in terms of funding, because I think the befriending
network is very valuable and very needed at the moment in time.
Just a recommendation, that's all.
Thank you.
Ms. Still?
Is that okay?
Yeah, that's fine.
We can go back to them and offer them some support in writing applications.
So, it's number 4, be enriched.
Do we have any questions?
Do we take to a vote or agreed?
All right.
Number 5 is community drugs and alcohol recovery service.
All right, Councillor Wario.
Sorry, I promise not to take up this whole meeting.
Just a quick question for clarification.
The participants for this, will they be new to the scheme or involved in previous pilots?
It's just the recruiting to this, that's all.
Mr. Hill, you want to answer that?
Our understanding is that half the beneficiaries on this project will be existing service users,
whilst the other half will be recruited into the project.
Is connected lives, any question on connected lives?
Okay, Councillor Warren.
Yeah, just in relation to this,
the delivery areas of Bessie Family Hub,
which I believe is the Yvonne Carr Centre for the document,
the Doddington Estate, Storm, Cromwell House,
and then Roehampton.
I'm very disappointed there's nothing in the,
say, Tooting, the whole area where there is
need for such a project.
And I'm just wondering whether we could look at maybe,
whether it's actually needed at Storm,
since you've got Cromwell House as a delivery centre,
and maybe one of, it could be explored,
maybe one of the sessions could be moved
to the centre of Wandsworth,
rather than located in two particular areas.
Yeah, so.
Yeah, of course we can take that back to Connected Lives
and look for that with them.
Any other question?
So do we agree to that?
Do we, agreed, thank you.
All right, the next one is,
Prew 8 Football Academy Limited.
That is paper number seven. Do we agree?
Agreed. Number eight is diverse.
Any question on this paper? Agreed.
Number nine is enable. Do you have any suggestion?
All right, Councillor Loy.
Yes, just looking at the income and expenditure on page 52 of this, is this a typo or not?
Because if you look at them both, the expenditure looks larger than natural income by about
16 ,000.
Actually, no, much more.
So, are they taking money from the unrestricted reserves to run, or what's the situation?
Yes, so the deficit was around $480 ,000 for that financial year, and that was covered
by unrestricted reserves.
The size and nature of the organisation, we didn't think that their reserves position
was it was smaller than we would have liked. It wasn't of significant concern from a sustainability
perspective. But it is something we could look into. Their
accounts are due to be submitted this month, so we could ask them to send us copies of
those just to confirm. Yeah, I'd like to suggest that, please, just
to make sure we have queried other ones in the past where there is discrepancies around
income and expenditure and use of reserves.
So just to reassure us, I suppose, if you could look into that, that would be great.
We agreed on?
Okay.
All right.
We have estate at CIC.
Do we agree?
All right.
Number 11 is asset reading staff, CIC.
Do we agree?
Councillor LAMAR, can you say something?
Okay.
Good.
Number 12 is Forever Fish on the Sea Icy. Do we agree?
Number 13 is Friends of Battersea Parish Church. Do we agree?
Number 14 is Friends of Trinity St. Mary's Sea Primary School. Do we agree?
Any questions? Agree?
Okay.
Number 15 is future skills training.
Do we agree?
Number 16 is generate.
Do we agree?
My 17th is partner at
Do we agree?
All right.
Just a query.
Is the project due to start in February 2026?
Is the timeline realistic or do we want to just shift it slightly to give them more time
to bring this into play?
We can go back and see if a later date would be beneficial or if they were perhaps looking
to start later in February which may give them a bit more time.
We go on.
Parting in the theatre, do we agree?
Okay, Ryan.
Yeah, I actually went along to the last performance, which was incredible.
And a number of the children acting in it had disabilities.
So it was absolutely just as they described that, you know, it was really helping all
the community. So when is the arts and culture theme coming round for them to be able to
apply?
Do you want to answer?
As I understand it, we don't have any confirmed dates for the next round of funding for arts
and culture, but we can cheque back on that and provide that to you.
Number 18 is happy homes.
Do I cheque with recommendation?
Do you agree?
Number 18 is happy homes.
Do we agree?
I'm really not happy about what there's nothing we can do about it.
Do we agree with that? Okay. Number 19, Holy Trinity Church, Southampton.
Number 20 is Kambala State Residence Association. Do we agree?
Do you agree?
So number 20 is KLS, so I will go out of the room and I'll leave the chairing for Councillor
Woyrow to do that.
So number 21, KLS application.
Any questions, any comments, or are we in agreement?
Yes, Councillor Graham.
Sorry, Councillor Hamilton.
Thank you, just as the last meeting of this cycle.
I must commend KLS on the ability they have to write
these submissions, because I don't think we've ever
turned one down.
Might be quite a nice idea, given they have been so
successful over the years, if we might encourage KLS
to potentially hold some form of workshop with other interested charities to share some
of the advice that they have on how to get these things through because they have been
spectacularly successful over the last four years.
Question, Daisy.
Thank you for that suggestion.
I think it's a very good one and very useful and a way of how organisations can learn from
each other and sharing.
So thank you.
I do want to go back, sorry everyone, to 17 because I'm not sure why the Putney arts one,
which was all about young people, is different to this one.
I'm not sure what, because this is about stuff that young people can do.
So I just want to be sure that just because this one is a theatre, that we're not seeing
it differently to, we're not just shoving it under arts and culture when it's clearly
about children.
Harriet or Ciaran?
Yeah, so in our assessment we did judge the, pardon the arts theatre application was a
to fit for the arts and culture theme, which obviously doesn't sit with the fund at the
moment.
There was also some concern around evidence of need as well.
They'd focus very specifically on previous participants in the programme, which does, of
course, show there is high demand for the project and value in the outcomes that they're
delivering.
However, they provided little supporting data in terms of the wider need for the project
and how it aligned with the priorities for the fund.
Cassie, do you want to come back on that?
Yes, it goes with Councillor Hamilton's point about some people being better at others than
writing the application. I mean, I haven't seen, have Putney Arts ever come to us for
a grant before?
Offhand, I'm not aware that they have, but we can chat.
I don't think they have so...
Can I ask for this one to be reviewed?
Because I feel like that they've never, I've never seen it here before.
They're doing amazing things for severely disabled children to actually have a chance of acting.
And I can't see the difference between young people for Catherine Lowe and the Putney Arts.
So can I just clarify, are you asking for the committee to relook at this or are you
asking for it to go back to the offices to reassess under a different theme?
Well, if we say under a different theme, there is no different theme because there's not
an arts and culture theme, so there's nothing for it to go back to.
So just in terms of your point around the previous grants on page 88, there's a list of the
previous applications that have been submitted for that grant fund. I think also part of the
assessment around this round is, you know, we have been particularly inundated with funding,
39 applications is a lot of applications and so you know we were really looking at the
due diligence and really carefully looking at how closely applications met the criteria
and being really thorough in that approach with several officers reviewing this.
So you know we have taken a very considered measured approach to this but if councillors
would like us to, we're happy to revisit that.
I appreciate that, because they're gonna get much funding
and they haven't had anything since 2022.
But yeah, I don't know what we can do here,
whether it's just me banging on about this one.
So just to clarify, Councillor Ruby,
are you asking us to send it back to the officers
for review. Okay. Can I ask the committee if they're in agreement with this?
Agreed.
Agreed. Great. Thank you very much. We still haven't finished number 21, Catherine
Lohse. Can I just finish that one first, and then I can return the chair back to Councillor
Is everybody in agreement with the Catherine O 'Settler statement?
Okay, great.
Where are we now?
We just finished.
Oh, okay. Alright.
So 22 is Living Truths CIC.
Do you have any questions or should we move to agreed?
Any questions? Agreed?
Hello? Do we agree?
So number 23, that is Mother and Child Welfare Organisation.
Definitely agree, thank you.
Hello guys, agree? I want to hear your voices please.
So we have 24 refugees, do we agree?
Thank you.
We'll ask Peter for neurodisabilities, 25.
Can I go back to number 24?
Number 24?
Yeah, my own life facilitator.
The offices' recommendations on page 20 – where is it?
I think –
115?
Yeah, 118.
The officers are saying this is a strong project, highly impactful, beneficiaries, it builds
upon the work of the Council, feasible delivery plan, clear monitoring evaluation, high level
free reserves, but they are not willing to fund this particular one based on everything
that she said here, and it would be one that I would have expected to get to be passed.
So it was a very strong application, and the value of the OML project is kind of appreciated.
However, there were two considerations that led to and not recommend.
And one, the high level of reserves, which stood out, £8 ,632 ,469.
And equally, this is an existing project, so a lower priority for the fund.
Great.
Thank you for that.
I suppose just for future consideration it would be useful if that was more explicit
in the papers.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Do we agree?
Do we agree?
Number 27 is send a mind.
WCL mind. Do we agree?
Share community. Number 28. Do we agree?
Number 29, Smallwood Primary School and Language Units. Do we agree?
Number 30, do we agree? Hello gentlemen, down there, down there. All right.
No use this one, use this one. It's easier to use this one.
Yeah. If you decide to use the A31 it's better.
I forgot where I am.
No matter what.
Okay sports, sports in mind. Yeah. Recombination, agreed?
Agreed.
All right, so number 31 sports for health do we agree
Sorry once again
This is a one with
expenditure and
Income don't correlate and so it's a question. I go back to you again, but it's just ending supported through
reserves
or just because there's a lot of match funding here that is expected to come and are we convinced
that all the match funding will be in place in relation to this?
Sorry, Councillor, would you repeat questions?
Yeah, if you look at the annual income and expenditure, there's quite a discrepancy between
them both, and you've got unrestricted reserves, which I'd have expected then that they're
tapped into in order to meet the expenditure.
For this project, you're expecting cash -matched funding of 42 ,000 pounds as a projected cost,
which is quite a substantial amount that's being asked for.
looking at their annual expenditure and having to tap into the reserves, are you confident
then that the match funding will actually be in place looking at their income stream?
Yes, from memory of this project, they have a good track record of delivering this type
of project and they have, I believe, run a similar project in the area following work
in Westminster, I believe. So they're familiar with the area, having piloted, I think, a
version of the project or a slightly different version. And so they are a vast experience
and we can take that away, though, the point about the match funding, just to confirm.
All right, so Sports for Health, do we agree on that?
I will suggest that you tell them that they should really put out their flyers when they
advertise them, because I live in West Philly and I don't know them, so they should really,
yeah.
And we've got lots of children coming to the library who love to benefit from this.
Since Mark's church, that is number 32, do we agree?
Agreed with the clarification around the match funding.
Oh, okay.
All right.
So with the match.
That's for the same marks.
For the same marks?
For the lift, yeah.
All right, is it going to?
Agreed?
Okay, with the match funding.
So number 33, that is the Big Beans charity.
Do we have any question?
Agreed?
Number 34, the Fesdam project.
Do we agree?
Number 35, Tooting History Group.
Do we agree?
Yeah, all right.
Councilwoman.
I'm just wondering about the grant they requested versus the grant that's recommended.
It seems like, seems kind of insignificant really.
I just wondered if you could provide a bit more information around why we haven't given
them the full amount.
Thank you.
Yes, I believe the amount reduced from the award is the amount that they would like to
spend on website development, which is a low priority for the fund.
Any other?
So do we agree?
So number 30.
Can I go on, please?
Number 36, two -team Woodcraft Falls.
Do we agree?
All right.
Number 37, transition town.
Number 38, what's with mediation service? Do we agree? Agreed. All right. Okay. Number
Do we agree?
Agreed?
All right, so, Councillor Jackson.
One very quick question.
Just going back to the refuge example, it strikes me that you end up with, like, there
are some, obviously, there are some very good projects and they can't go ahead because of
the reserves, which makes complete sense according to the criteria.
Do we get any sense of because those organisations are so large, if they end up just doing them
anyway, and is it the case that they're sort of just trying their luck to get funding?
Or is it the case that because they're national charities, the reserves actually aren't applicable
to let's say a local arm of that charity?
Just try to understand like what projects are we missing out on because they sit in
this weird grey area of being a very well -established charity,
but with very good projects like this.
If there's anything you can tell us.
Is that it?
I mean, it is a bit of grey area.
I think my sense is that they're looking for income streams.
So it's around diversified income,
which in and of itself is a good thing.
But we must think about impact really,
and where public money is an investment in the community
and we should be investing in those organisations
that are smaller and need our support because of that.
So I think that I think should inform our thinking
when we're assessing these applications.
Any other contribution?
I've done everything I agreed on.
So conclude tonight's meeting.
Thank you.