Agenda and minutes

The Chair welcomed everyone to the meeting. Apologies for absence were received from Cllr Greer (Vice-Chair), Cllr Ozer, Tinu Olowe (Director of HR & OD), Shaun Rogan (Head of Corporate Strategy), Pastor Nick Chanda (Enfield Faith Forum) and Ginnie Landon (Enfield Women’s Centre).

Members of the Board are invited to identify any disclosable pecuniary, other pecuniary or non-pecuniary interests relevant to the items on the agenda.

There were no declarations of interest registered in respect of any items on the agenda.

To agree the minutes of the meeting held on 17 January 2023.

AGREED the minutes of the meeting held on 17 January 2023.

To receive the report of Michael Sprosson, Head of Procurement and Claire Reilly, Head of Policy & Contract Development.

RECEIVED the report of Michael Sprosson, Head of Procurement and Claire Reilly, Head of Policy & Contract Development.

NOTED

1.    The report provides an update on the implementation on the Sustainable and Ethical Procurement Policy, including information on how Procurement Services is supporting local business suppliers.

2.    This item had last been discussed at the Equalities Board meeting on 15 July 2021, at which time officers from Procurement Services shared information on the development of a new Sustainable & Ethical Procurement Policy to replace the previous policy which expired in 2019.

3.    Development of a new policy was timely to update it to align with and drive refreshed organisational priorities, as set out in the Council Plan, Climate Action Plan and Fairer Enfield.

4.    From the extensive consultation and engagement carried out with stakeholders there was broad support for the new policy and Cabinet approved the policy in February 2022.

5.    The key features of the new Sustainable and Ethical Procurement Policy are summarised in the report and focus on four priority areas: social value, ethical practices, supporting the local economy and climate action.

6.    In each of these areas the policy sets out Enfield Council’s commitments as a commissioner and the expectations of suppliers. This includes a framework for minimum, enhanced and preferred standards for specific areas in sustainable and ethical procurement.

7.    The framework also details what a supplier should do as a minimum when seeking to work with the Council, and includes enhanced standards, which go beyond these minimum requirements, and preferred standards which are considered best practice.

8.    Where suppliers or those bidding for contracts do not yet meet minimum standards, the Council will support these organisations by signposting them to relevant information and guidance to ensure that they can meet them in the future.

9.    The new policy also has specific areas relating to equalities, diversity & inclusion. These are: Labour and enforcement practices, Equality and Diversity and Modern Slavery.

10. Following Cabinet approval, the new policy has been presented at the Senior Leadership Forum to provide an overview of the policy across the organisation. Training and induction sessions are also available on the Council’s training platform for officers to support implementation and understanding of the policy. It has also been promoted in Staff Matters, on the Council’s website and the internal Procurement Services microsite.

11. New templates and toolkits have been introduced to support contract managers, including templates for contract meetings which include monitoring of delivery of social value, sustainable and equalities and diversity and inclusion for each contract.

12. The report detailed spend over the past three years and illustrated the top ten local suppliers alongside some headline information for each of these.

The following comments and questions were raised:

(i)             In response to a question from Cllr Georgiou as to what defines a local or non-local supplier, Claire Reilly, Head of Policy & Contract Development advised that from a point of spend, the current measure is based on the payee being registered in the borough.

(ii)  ...  view the full minutes text for item 4.

To receive the report of Shaun Rogan, Head of Corporate Strategy.

A presentation will be provided by Simon Gardner, Regeneration Director and Jo Ikhelef, Chief Executive Officer, Enfield Voluntary Action.

RECEIVED a presentation from Jo Ikhelef, Chief Executive Officer, Enfield Voluntary Action and Simon Gardner, Regeneration Director

NOTED

1.    The Chair, Cllr Ergil introduced the report and said that he was grateful to officers for bringing this item forward as many of the Equalities Board members had raised this issue very early on. He went on to say that Pastor Nick Chanda who represents the Enfield Faith Forum on the Equalities Board had been eager to receive this presentation, therefore in view of his absence at tonight’s meeting it was agreed that a copy of the presentation be forwarded to Pastor Chanda for information. Action: Stacey Gilmour

2.    The report provides an overview on grant making by the local authority to Enfield’s voluntary and community sector with reference to ‘live’ grant streams that offer widest accessibility to all community partners and support offered to community groups to access internal and external funding opportunities. These currently are the Enfield Neighbourhood Fund and the Edmonton Community Chest Fund.

3.    Jo Ikhelef, Chief Executive Officer, Enfield Voluntary Action (EVA) introduced her presentation which provided an overview on what EVA is and how it supports BME groups in Enfield Council’s grants programmes.

4.    EVA recognises the barriers for BME groups to navigate mainstream services and as a result, provide accessible services built on and improved over 32 years, which has led to this high representation of BME groups being supported through EVA’s services.

5.    EVA works to empower BME groups to provide much needed support to communities that are culturally specific and dynamic in their reach.

6.    Further information was provided on EVA members, raising funds, participatory grant programmes and the guidance that is offered to BME groups throughout the grant programme process.

7.    In response to a question from Cllr Pratt, Officers explained how informal groups across the borough who were not registered as charities could still apply for funding with support from EVA.

8.    Cllr Gyosheva asked if there was any control regarding repeat grant applications. Officers explained that each grant programme will have different rules and criteria and the monitoring of each fund has its own process.

9.    In response to Cllr Cetinkaya’s question regarding the number of community groups in the borough it was advised that this has remained relatively stable. There had been quite a few closures during the pandemic, however lots of new community groups had since opened, for example food banks.

10. Following a question from the Chair regarding Funding Fares, Jo advised that one had taken place this month with further events planned for May and September. Jo encouraged members of the board to sign up to the EVA newsletter for all event information.

11. Simon Gardner, Regeneration Director provided further information on the Enfield Neighbourhood Fund, which is a funding programme made available by the London Borough of Enfield. The funding comes from the Community Infrastructure Levy and LBE have allocated a pot of funding to a grants programme to support the development of an  ...  view the full minutes text for item 5.

To note the completion of the Work Programme for 2022/23 and that the Equalities Board Work Programme for 2023/24 will be discussed at the first meeting of the new municipal year.

This was the last meeting of the municipal year, and the 2022/23 Work Programme was now completed. 

Members were thanked for their participation on the Board during this municipal year.

At the first meeting of the Board in the new municipal year, Harriet Potemkin, Head of Policy & Strategy would present the Equalities Annual Report which would help inform the Equalities Board Work Programme for 2023/24.

Action: Harriet Potemkin

To note that the dates of future meetings will be confirmed following Annual Council on Wednesday 10 May 2023.

This was the last meeting of the municipal year. Meeting dates for 2023/24 would be approved at Annual Council on 10 May.