Appendix 4 Funding considerations
Argyll and Bute Council · 26 November 2025
Back to Argyll and Bute Council — 26 November 2025 and its agenda
Text extracted from the council's PDF. Layout and reading order may differ from the original.
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APPENDIX 4 COMMUNITY COUNCIL GRANT PROVISION Information on Current Budget Position: £24,800 is available from existing budgetary provision for distribution as administration grant funding between 56 Community Councils. This is paid out based on the current formula: Up to 1000 electors - £400 (payable to 38 community councils) = £15,200 1001 to 5000 electors - £500 (payable to 15 community councils) = £7,500 5001+ electors - £700 (payable to 3 community councils) = £2,100 Without additional budget being allocated to the service, those levels cannot be adjusted. A top up discretionary grant of 10p per election is paid out at a rate of 10p per elector. Those figures are adjusted every four years to reflect the most recent elector numbers and then made available on the basis that the budget remains available to the service. At this current time, the cost to the service in paying the 10p per elector is £6956.60 from a budget of £10,000. The remaining budget was ringfenced to pay for community councillor mileage in respect of their attendance at Area Community Planning Groups (ACPGs) and for any attendance of any community councillors who also were the chair or vice-chair of any of the ACPGs to facilitate their attendance at the full Community Planning Partnership (CPP) or CPP Management Committee meetings (CPPMC). With most ACPGs meetings being held fully remotely or by hybrid means, those travel costs are minimal with only a few claims having been made in the last few years for attendance at CPPMC or CPP, as those meetings continue to be held in person. The last review of any funding provision for community councils came occurred in February 2019 when the Policy and Resources Committee considered requests for additional funding following a call from community councils to review grant provision. The committee agreed to ask that work be undertaken as to how the £10,000 budget could be reallocated. However, following that work that committee declined to make any adjustments to distribution of these funds when the matter was reconsidered on 16 May 2019. No further reviews of funding allocation have been undertaken since that time, despite the Scheme and grant levels being consulted on and amended in 2022. In addition to holding the grant and discretionary budgets, totalling £34,800, the democratic service budget also fully funds the cost of public liability insurance for community councils in Argyll and Bute and have done so since the Scottish Association of Community Councils, who previously provided this, folded in 2009. No additional resource was ever provided to accommodate these costs as the decision was that it was for individual councils to determine whether they wished to put this in place. While it was agreed to provide cover in Argyll and Bute, no additional budgetary provision was given to
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the service to fund the costs so while there is an underspend from the discretionary grant, the reality is that with rising costs of insurance, and the lack of additional budget, this in part alleviates is a cost pressure on the service. The current annual insurance was renewed in June 2025 at a cost of £11,993.05. Considerations for the Council: Having provided further opportunity in the second stage consultation specifically on the grant levels (pointing out the feedback received a stage one would also be considered), there were two calls for increased funding. Both set out proposals for consideration when setting grant levels. The first proposal suggested that the grant levels should be set at £1500, with an option for larger geographical areas where online meetings cannot be held and for larger urban centres with more residents to receive additional fees on needs basis. They took the liberty of setting out their concerns and a suggested budget based on their actual ongoing costs: Proposal one “We have reviewed the material and we are content with the new amendments. However, as we have raised on a number of occasions the issue of the Community Council budget with our elected councillors, we agreed that we would raise our concerns regarding the current funding for Community Councils. We are mindful that A&B Council does not have bottomless resources but note that Community Councils have a strong presence in ‘last mile’ consultations on a range of issues from planning, HSCP matters, road closures as well as Community and Household Emergency Planning and local road and infrastructure maintenance So we would like to register the following points along with an outline ‘budget’ for the Community Council to substantiate our points. 1. We need to be able to pay some basic expenses, if requested, to ensure people who cannot support their volunteer work on the Community Council are not excluded for financial reasons. 2. Increasingly the Council and other service providers use the CC networks, including electronic networks, as the 'last mile' communication channel and yet this is not currently supported in relation to budget at a suitable level. Without the technical support within the CC it is imperative that a professional site is used to prevent challenges from hacking / corruption of site etc and this can be costly. 3. Safe and accessible meeting spaces are required, not only for agreed CC meetings but for consultation meetings on a range of issues e.g. going forward the LDP3. 4. Currently there is no official provision made for access to software / hardware for on- line meetings so that option is entirely reliant on the CC members providing this which is not always available so meetings in person remain the norm. We have suggested previously, through our local councillor that as a minimum A&B Council should have a Community Council site with a page for each CC to use for routine communication etc and enable relevant software to be available and maintained for official business. If this was
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provided centrally it would provide a significant service to community councils and reduce overall costs significantly. 5. For provision of website and some other services the size of the community council makes no difference to the costs of basic admin support so a flat rate for all councils with perhaps additional finance for either (or both) the larger geographical areas where online meetings cannot be held and for larger urban centres with more residents. This could be made on a case by case basis perhaps with an 'additional fund'. 6. Engagement with significant numbers of consultations from A&B Council and service providers - including in 2026 onwards the LDP 3 which may necessitate additional public meetings etc which have an on-cost in terms of room hire, leafleting etc. Even with volunteer delivery a leaflet printing (from CHEP experience) of 600 A6 cards for all houses in area costs now around £120 per printing. We have put together an outline budget for a community council including website (single biggest item) and consultation costs and attach an Excel spreadsheet for information. Based on an estimate of 56 operational Community Councils in Argyll & Bute if each were to receive £1500 per year (larger councils - by population or geographical area - could request additional funds) this could provide good value for money for the 'reach' into communities that it gives A&B Council. Enabling ‘last mile’ consultations (on line or in person) is a valuable role for CCs especially as the LDP3 is prepared in the coming years. Good processes reduce the risk of subsequent challenges by communities that they were not consulted in an appropriate manner!” That community council pointed out that they currently receive £626.60 in grant funding from the council (£500 administration grant and £126.60 discretionary grant). Their outlined budget referred to above is: Current Expenditure Future Expenditure Accessible Room Hire for 7 meetings £183.00 £183.00 Consultation Meeting room hire £200.00 Admin £30.00 £30.00 Printing information leaflets for household s - volunteer distribution £150.00 Travel £93.00 £93.00 Hospitality £20.00 £20.00 GDPR Fee £52.00 £52.00 Support for local activities £150.00 £150.00 Poppy Wreath £42.00 £42.00 Website maintenance £500.00 £500.00 Parish Online £28.00 £28.00 Bank Charges £57.00 £1,155.00 £57.00 £1,505.00 Proposal two:
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Suggested that the grant levels need to be doubled to allow community councils to realistically do the basics, eg paying for venues, websites, adverts etc. They also indicated that there should be provision to reallocate any remaining budget from any dormant CCs in March of each year. Additional Costings for both proposals received: Proposal one – Would require an administration grant of £1500 per community council totalling £84,000. £24,800 is already in the budget and if there was agreement to convert the discretionary grant into one grant payment budget, that would mean an available budget of £34,800 could be used towards the overall costs. Consequently, an additional budgetary allocation of £49,200 would be necessary to fund the grant structure, before any costs for insurance are added to the budget or the mention of a top up. Realistically, with allowance for those, the additional annual budget required would be around £70,000. However, as pointed out, £500 of this is allocated for professional website fees. While 38 of our community councils have their own websites (including the 2 dormant community councils), some of those are wordpress which do not require as much administration and oversight and may only have domain rental costs. A further 6 community councils have a dedicated web page on what is likely to be the local development trust website and again, that is possibly hosted in kind. The remainder (12 have either no website, their website couldn’t be accessed, or the website was clearly defunct). In addition, on the outline budget set out there would also be some question about the scope of the budget line “support for local activities”. If this is actual community engagement costs incurred by the community council it would be consistent with the Scheme. However, if the suggestion is that this might allow community councils to make donations to other groups in their area then that may be problematic as it would not be appropriate to redistribute funds intended solely to meet the core operating costs of a community council to other groups. Community councils can of course be the body who might raise funds for certain events or projects being undertaken by other groups in their communities and both the council and local TSI offer opportunity for community organisations to apply for funding. Proposal two – Suggested doubling the grant allowance but it was not clear if this was both grants. The current base level grant of £400 would increase to £800. That is a significant rise, even without the doubling of the discretionary grant levels as the largest payment possible would currently be £100 top up, given there must be less than 1000 electors in that grant band. There would be a total cost of £30,400 to fund 38 grants at £800. Doubling the mid-sized community council budgets would see a grant of £1000 per community council, costing £15,000 (15 grants at £1000 each). However, the largest of those mid-sized community councils would not see any rise as a result only to the administration grant as they currently receive a combined total of £984.80. To obtain any
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significant increase here would require the retention of the discretionary top-up. It would therefore be suggested that the discretionary fund remain available to all bands, upon application only. That would see the potential for all grants within that band potentially increase by £500 per annum. In respect of the upper level, a £1400 base grant would cost £4200 per annum to deliver (3x £1,400). Similarly retaining ability to apply for any top up funds, up the value of 10p per elector would then give effect to a real time increase of £700 increase in funding. Helensburgh Community Council would lose income, and the other 2 community councils would only see a small increase, with one receiving an increase of just £40 per annum. The entire budget required to fund those proposed increases would be £49,600. An additional £17,000 would be required to fully meet the costs of providing the discretionary grant and insurance bringing the total required to £66,600. If rounded up to £67,000, this should still allow the team to continue to provide some funds for the service to meet any costs of community councillors attending ACPG, CPP or CPPMC, per existing arrangements. On the assumption there is already £34,800 available between the discretionary and administration budgets, the additional budget required to fund this would be £32,200.