On 1 March we reported that the city council, at its annual budget-setting meeting on 21 February, had cut the budget for its 2023-24 Exeter grants programme to just £15,000 from the £425,000 it had allocated to the scheme when it was first introduced in 2019.
The programme, comprising ward grants of up to £500 for one-off hyperlocal projects, small grants of up to £3,000 for city-wide projects or events and large grants of up to £30,000 for community building, refurbishment or equipment costs, was intended to have a long-term impact on inequality, health and individual and community resilience across the city.
We said that the council’s 2023-24 budget provided nothing for ward grants, small grants or community centre running costs and published a table listing hundreds of grassroots groups and community organisations that have previously depended on these grants to cover essential costs.
We included a bar chart to make clear how precipitous the 96.5% fall in Exeter grants programme budgets had been over the previous four years.
Fast forward seven weeks to the April meeting of the city council. Labour councillor Martin Pearce, who is responsible for the Exeter grants programme, was asked to clarify the council’s position on ward grants this year.
He said: “I just want to reiterate here and now that there is £39,000 allocated to the ward grants for next year contrary to some of the misinformation that is being published all over the city by various other organisations.”
He added, turning to face the Exeter Observer reporter sitting at the press table: “Hopefully that will be reported by the opposition propaganda, sorry, the Exeter Observer in a full statement, rather than just taking two words from the middle of a sentence and changing the meaning of a fairly lengthy contribution for probably the seventeenth time.”
Readers who would like to ensure we are not misquoting him can view his contribution to the meeting in full below.
Martin Pearce speaking at Exeter City Council’s 18 April meeting
What could have prompted Martin Pearce to traduce Exeter Observer during a public meeting of the city council in this way?
Our story reported that the council “cut the community grants budget by nearly a quarter in its second full year of operation, then lopped off another £118,000 last year before reducing it to a rump of just £15,000 in the 2023-24 budget that the council agreed last week”.
This was true when the story was published, was derived from the primary sources linked to in the statement and other council financial records, and remains true now. It unambiguously cites the 2023-24 budget passed by the council on 21 February, which was subsequently published on its website and remains unchanged.
Exeter City Council 2023-24 budget book
Shortly after Martin Pearce made his remarks, the city council meeting addressed the minutes of the April Executive committee meeting at which the council’s finance director presented his quarterly review of its general revenue budget.
This reported an underspend on the 2023-23 Exeter grants programme and said, referring to the neighbourhood portion of Community Infrastructure Levy receipts that have been the programme’s source of funding since the end of its first year: “The grants budget for 2023-24 is currently paused and will be confirmed following the accrual of further neighbourhood CIL receipts to be received based on the planning forecasts.”
At the meeting, Green Party councillor Diana Moore asked why the community grants programme had been paused and was now deferred, but instead of answering her question at the meeting council leader Phil Bialyk said she would subsequently receive a written response from the council’s finance director.
When the response appeared, thirteen days later, it said: “As members are aware there is a shortfall in neighbourhood CIL funding. As a result, grants approvals were paused to ensure the council’s obligations in 2023-24 could be met. Ward grants programme will commence in the municipal year.”
Written responses to questions raised at Exeter City Council’s 4 April Executive committee meeting
As neither report nor written answer specified any change to the 2023-24 community grants budget, we looked to a scrutiny meeting held the previous week at which Martin Pearce was asked to clarify the position on ward and any other grants.
He said ward grants would “continue as they are, currently, for the next financial year, so there’s £39,000 allocated” and that the council had “some certainty on the funding position for building grants” although he did not say whether any money had been allocated to this budget or, if so, how much.
He also said the position on the “the small, large and strategic grants that we’ve been fortunate to be able to pay out to a countless number of organisations to the tune of several million pounds over the last few years” was “unknown at this point”, adding “what we are almost, you know, entirely certain of is that there will be other grant funding coming forward through the course of the year, but what we can’t say is how much that will be and when it will be”.
He also mentioned what he described as a “great voluntary community sector conference” at which those present “were all put at ease that there is a guarantee that the ward grants will continue”, adding that they “were encouraged that if they ever hear other members making statements they’re concerned about or unsure about to get in direct contact with portfolio holders or senior management board members as they’re the people who can speak for the council on all matters”.
Working Together VCSE and ECC presentation led by Martin Pearce on 15 March
As Martin Pearce’s account did not explain when, how, by whom or from what source the £39,000 budget allocation had been made, or provide any substantive information about any other aspect of the 2023-24 Exeter grant programme budget, we wrote to the council’s finance director to seek clarification.
He confirmed that two unpublished decisions had been taken in private under rules which allow virements – in-year transfers of funds from one part of a budget to another – to take place up to a maximum value of £40,000 without council approval. (All other amendments to the council’s budget must be made at public meetings of the full city council).
One such decision, to allocate £27,000 of unbudgeted income to the 2023-24 community buildings budget, had been taken on 21 March. Another, to allocate £39,000 of unbudgeted income to the 2023-24 ward grants budget, had been taken on 24 March.
He also confirmed that the source of unbudgeted income that had been used was not neighbourhood CIL but a refund of VAT charged against income from the council’s leisure services, in a departure from the council’s existing policy, and that neither decision would be reported to the council until 18 July.
We published our story about the council’s 2023-24 budget decisions on 1 March. The revised bar chart shows the impact of these virements on the 2023-24 community grants budgets.
We’re happy to report the finance director’s clarification in full. And we’re delighted if our reporting of the decision to decimate the community grants budget put the council under pressure to find some money down the back of the sofa to reverse some of its cuts. Although we’re no less surprised that the money is to be taken from the council’s leisure services, which are losing £2 million a year.
But the community grants budget is still £344,000 lower than it was when it was introduced by the council leader as “an exciting and bold step forward for the council in our endeavours to support community groups and organisations as they continue to work together on local projects that help make Exeter such a great place to live”.
And a fortnight has now passed since Martin Pearce’s attempt to smear Exeter Observer during a public meeting of the city council but we have yet to receive an apology.
We make no apology, in any case, for drawing attention to these budget cuts: it is independent journalism’s job to hold power to account in the public sphere. And we’re confident that doing so will reinforce our reputation, not put it at risk.
Nor do we think Exeter’s Labour politicians should be surprised that Exeter Observer calls out their actions: they have dominated the city council for eleven years, making numerous decisions that urgently require greater public scrutiny.
Martin Pearce may instead have put the council at risk, speaking as he has during the pre-election period, which this year began on 27 March.
During this period the council should “not publish any material which, in whole or in part, appears to be designed to affect public support for a political party” according to the Local Government Act 1986 as amended by the Local Government Act 1988 and developed in the government’s local authority publicity code of practice.
The code’s scope includes “any communication, in whatever form, addressed to the public at large or to a section of the public”. The city council’s meetings, broadcast live then subsequently made available for streaming and download, as they should be to make its decision-making processes more transparent, fall within it.
Lord Mayor Yolonda Henson, chairing the April council meeting, certainly thought he was pushing it, as she made clear when she rebuked him and other Labour councillors for using the meeting to make political points when he had finished speaking.
As an Executive portfolio holder Martin Pearce speaks on behalf of the council, a point he stressed in his remarks. The council should be able to rely on him, as it should all other councillors, not to put its reputation at risk or undermine public trust in its actions by behaving this way during its public meetings.
The council meeting then moved on to the next item of business: the minutes of an audit and governance committee meeting and the approval of a Member’s Code of Conduct, updated to include new principles about treating others with respect. It passed unanimously.
