The Head of Finance and Procurement introduced the report which sought an agreement on how the annual charitable donation of £10,000 that came with the new contract for the financial management system, be spent.

The Chair invited Members to make comments, and these included:

·      Could the £10,000 be split across each area committee, or rotate the amount to two area committees at a time?;

·      giving the £10,000 to area committees could be useful and be agreed at the first meeting of the area committee;

·      Members could agree at the area committee what charities they would like to donate to; and

·      a limit could be placed on the area committees to only allocate two charities

Councillor Mike Baldock moved the following motion: That the £10,000 be split across all four area committees, and this was seconded by Councillor Lloyd Bowen.

The Chair invited Members to make comments on the motion, and these included:

·         The recommendation was fair, simple and did not require a lot of officer time;

·         currently, there was an area committee review so the function of an area committee was unclear;

·         paragraph 2.7 of the report stated that if one of the Mayor’s Charities was a national charity, then that charity would be excluded from the charitable donation;

·         if the Mayor had chosen two national charities, then the £10,000 would not be able to be donated to the Mayors charities; and

·         £10,000 to some charities was not a massive amount to receive, whereas there were small charities across the borough that would appreciate the donation more.

On being put to the vote, the motion was lost.

Councillor Elliott Jayes moved the following motion: That the £10,000 be given to the youth services across the whole borough and this was seconded by Councillor Mike  Baldock.

The Chair invited Members to make comments, and these included:

·         This would be difficult to administer;

·         it was not as simple as giving the money to charities because some charities could be chosen by the Mayor every year and receive the same donation every year, there needed to be controls in place;

·         having a procedural document to follow would aid Members and officers with how to allocate the donation; and

·         the report was clear that the Mayor could decide whether the money went to a national charity or not.

On being put to the vote, the motion was lost.

Councillor James Hunt proposed that the report be deferred to a task and finish group to look at creating a policy on how the Council could properly allocate the funding in the future. This was seconded by Councillor Mike Baldock and on being put to the vote, the proposal was lost.

Resolved:

(1)   That the financial system provider’s annual social value donation of £10,000 be given to the locally based Mayor’s charity/charities each year.

(2)   That the Mayor receiving the donation is the Mayor of Swale at the start of each contract year from March 2025.