London Councils launches supplementary consultation on grants scheme

London Councils has launched a supplementary consultation on the future scope of its London Boroughs Grants Scheme, after obtaining a legal opinion on equalities issues.

The group, which also received expert advice from from the Equalities and Human Rights Commission, has designed the consultation as an addition to the original consultation that it ran last year.

The move follows a High Court ruling in February, when Mr Justice Calvert-Smith declared that a decision by the leaders’ committee of London Councils on 14 December 2010 adopting a categorisation of currently commissioned services and deciding on the timing of proposed changes and transitional arrangements in respect of the scheme was unlawful.

London Councils had reached its decision without due regard to its statutory equalities duties under the Race Relations Act 1976, the Sex Discrimination Act 1976 and the Disability Discrimination Act 1995, the judge added.

Following the ruling London Councils pointed out that its proposed budget still stood. It had set the budget for 2011/12 at £17.8m, down from £26m.

The supplementary consultation is seeking views on:

• The categories proposed by London Councils
• Any alternative scheme of categorisation “as long as it ties in with the objectives of the review and the agreed principles and priorities for the future programme (bearing in mind the review looks to devolve decision making down to a local level)"
• The categorisations of existing commissions. London Councils has already undertaken a preliminary categorisation of each commission
• Anything to be added to or amended in responses to the original consultation on equalities impacts
• The timescale for decommissioning.

London Councils’ Corporate Director of Services, Nick Lester said: “Although the judicial review found that the original consultation was sound, it did rule that we needed to do more work to assess the detailed impact that changes to the scheme could have on equalities.

“We are now moving quickly to ensure we meet our equalities duties and to provide the voluntary sector with some clarity in this turbulent time."

The consultation will run until 5 pm on 8 April. More information is available here.

Philip Hoult