Just under £50,000 worth of bonfire diversionary funding has been granted to a South Belfast organisation despite it not meeting the relevant application criteria set down by the council.
After Sinn Féin, the DUP and the UUP passed £47,745 of funding for the Greater Village Regeneration Trust during a secret Belfast City Council meeting on Wednesday, Alliance Party representatives have announced they contacted the Audit Office for an independent assessment on the matter.
One Alliance representative said the PSNI told councillors there could be "a threat of violence" if the area didn't get the funding.
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Earlier in the year the council agreed to spend half a million pounds in July and August on a programme directing young people away from antisocial and criminal behaviour.
£250,000 was allocated for each month, and while August events were covered, overall the successfully claimed funding for July only amounted to £202,255. No organisations from South Belfast were successful in their applications.
Five groups were unsuccessful, the Greater Village Regeneration Trust, the McDonald Centre, The Hubb Community Resource Centre, Phoenix Education and Woodvale Cricket Club.
At the council’s Strategic Policy and Resources Committee last week, in a restricted item away from the public and press, elected representatives were then asked how to deal with the underspend of £47,745. They were asked to choose between giving it to the Greater Village Regeneration Trust in South Belfast, which was next in the scoring list and had passed one stage of the assessment process, or to allocate £9,549 to each of the five groups, or save the money for council coffers.
DUP Alderman Frank McCoubrey proposed allocating the entire underspend to the Greater Village Regeneration Trust. He was voted down, with four votes in favour, and 15 against the proposal.
Instead the committee passed a proposal by Alliance Councillor Michael Long to use the underspend “to develop a capacity building programme in the autumn for groups which might wish to deliver activities next July, with any remaining funding to be returned to departmental budgets.”
Then at the full meeting of the council on Monday, councillors agreed to a proposal by DUP Alderman Dean McCullough for an emergency meeting, where he said he wished the decision would be “rescinded.”
At the Monday meeting UUP Alderman Jim Rodgers told the chamber: “Out of all the areas of the city of Belfast, there is one that has suffered, and it is South Belfast. I feel it is important in the interests of this council to work together united to investigate this immediately.”
Also at that meeting Sinn Féin Council Micheal Donnelly said: “Our party has been very consistent in the approach to funding, and if an organisation doesn’t reach the threshold, then it shouldn’t receive the funding.”
However this position seems to have changed two days later at the emergency meeting of the Strategic Policy and Resources Committee. A representative from the council press office said they could not discuss the decision at this meeting as it was under 'restricted items' until ratification at the next meeting of the full council, which is not until September.
Alliance Councillor Sam Nelson, a member of the Strategic Policy and Resources Committee, said after the meeting on Wednesday it was “a disappointing decision which went against the council’s need for openness and transparency with ratepayers’ money”.
He said: “Alliance Councillors had previously proposed a different scheme due to the number of organisations applying for the diversionary money which did not meet the criteria. Although the party’s proposal for a capacity-building scheme to assist community groups had previously been accepted by other parties, it has since been referred back to the Council’s Strategic Policy and Resources Committee twice by the DUP, before being officially overturned today (Wednesday) thanks to a U-turn from Sinn Féin.”
He added: “Alliance has continually pushed for more openness and transparency at Belfast City Council, especially when it comes to the use of ratepayers’ money. So it is disappointing to once again be talking about another funding decision being pushed through despite the organisation not meeting the agreed criteria threshold.
“Alliance’s initial proposal would have not only helped tackle the issue around bonfires but helped organisations who apply for funding to do that on a long-term basis instead of the annual sticking plaster approach currently employed.
“Other parties initially accepted that but have since U-turned. Both ourselves and the SDLP raised concerns about the council stepping outside the agreed funding process, but others pushed ahead today to meet the needs of one particular organisation. Councillors were informed by the PSNI there could be a risk of violence if the funding was not awarded in this way but as political leaders, we can never allow the threat of violence to make decisions for us.
“Alliance has contacted the Audit Office to seek a meeting on this matter. It is unacceptable Belfast ratepayers have to continue funding the council’s diversionary scheme in its current form, which avoids dealing with the problem and results in a party carve-up each year, instead of a previously-agreed proposal which is for the good of everyone applying.”
The annual diversionary scheme has run into controversy before, with Alliance, the SDLP and Green Party previously calling results a DUP-Sinn Féin community funding “carve-up” lacking open process.
The local government auditor Colette Kane in a report two years ago said the fund could “lead to the perception of favouritism and is also unfair to groups not able to apply.”
The fund was postponed in 2020 due to the pandemic, and in 2021 Sinn Féin and the DUP pushed through a decision to fund again the same groups from 2019, to the consternation of smaller parties.
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