INAUGURAL MEETING OF THE INVESTMENT FUND ADVISORY GROUP Update #1 Advisory Group attendees: Chair Kathryn Harries, innogy Kate Oates, innogy Wendy Walters/John Wilson, Carmarthenshire County Council Jackie Dorrian, Carmarthenshire Association of Voluntary Services Barry Liles, Coleg Sir Gar/Trinity St Davids Nia Ball, Carmarthenshire Tourism Association Chris Olchawski, Federation of Small Businesses Marc Davies, Grwp Cefn Gwlad/Wales Co-op Vicky Davies, Welsh Government Aled Davies, NFU Cymru (former Cambrian Mountains Project Manager) Additional attendee - Peter Williams, NFU Cymru Apologies None Introductions All group members introduced themselves Kathryn Harries (innogy) gave a presentation introducing the fund opportunity, the results of the Brechfa Community profile consultation project and innogy s initial plans for the fund. The content of this presentation is consistent with the April 2017 Community Investment Update that is available on innogy s website: www.innogy.com/brechfaforest The following questions were raised on the presentation: Can a tender to administer the fund be joint between two organisations? Yes, it can. Why is there the need for two separate funds, one for the local area and one for the wider region? The reason for splitting funds is to ensure that applications from the area closest to the wind farm do not have to directly compete with applications from the wider region. This structure will ensure that no sound application to the Local Fund will lose out at the expense of the Regional fund. innogy s aim with this structure was to reassure the communities closest to the wind farm that they are the priority for the fund. How will the administrator decide to share out the fund? innogy will work with the administrator and, crucially, the panel of local decision makers that manage the distribution of the Local Fund, to ideally reach a consensus on how the funds are split between each fund each year. innogy intends to adopt a completely flexible approach to the split between the funds each year which will again ensure that the local community closest to the wind farm remains the priority.
Will the administrators provide a hand holding service in order to get potential bids up to a certain standard? Ideally yes, having a locally based officer with suitable skills has worked well at innogy s Gwynt y Môr Community Fund. innogy will be looking for an administrator with excellent knowledge and networks in the local area to enable them to effectively sign post applicants to other support services, grant opportunities etc. Some of innogy s other grant panels have even used some of the funds to proactively make grants to pay for additional support in the form of community development workers or sometimes consultants to develop ambitious plans for potential new projects that could address issues in the community using grants from the fund. How will the local people be involved throughout the process? Ultimately local community representatives will make up the decision making panel for the allocation of the Local Community Fund and one member will also sit on the panel for the Regional Fund. The local panel will also be key in terms of deciding how money is allocated between the two funds. innogy is also currently working on a plan for how the wider community will be consulted and involved in the development of the fund which will be shared with the advisory group in September and discussed with the Community Councils closest to the site to gain their input. It is likely that the consultation will include drop in sessions, an online and hard copy survey and potentially some workshop sessions with key stakeholders such as Community Councils. Feedback from the group stressed that some local people cannot access broadband so it would be important to ensure hard copies of consultation materials are made available. When will the local and regional areas be defined? innogy is working on some drafts for the potential local fund area of benefit at the moment. The intention is for the advisory group to provide intelligence that would help establish options for the definition of the region that would be most appropriate. Once draft areas have been established they will be consulted on more widely with the wider community and key stakeholders. innogy also stressed that the area of benefit would not have to remain the same throughout the life of the fund. How would the fund address the issue of competitiveness in terms of providing support to businesses? As the funding comes from a private sector source, state aid is not an issue in the same way as it is for public sector funding but it is something the grants panel and the administrator (once appointed) will need to consider with innogy.
Practical exercise reflecting on relevant historic and current funding activity see photographs
Terms of reference All agreed the content of the draft document. Conflicts of interest will become part of the standing agenda for this group. Communication and group members innogy were asked why Community Councils were not included in the advisory group. The reason was that the scope of this group was to look at potential priorities for the Regional Fund rather than the Local Fund. The membership of this group was therefore based on
their skills and knowledge on the themes that scored as the most important potential priorities for the fund to communities closest to the wind farm that took part in the Brechfa Community Profile. Community Councils will be consulted on plans for the fund in due course. Innogy is to consider approaching Carmarthenshire Young Farmers to invite them to join the advisory group in the future. There is an expectation that all members of this group that are involved in other groups and networks (such as the Public Service Board and Grwp Cefn Gwlad) would update those groups on the advisory groups activity. Also, once the consultation has been launched, the group will be expected to promote this opportunity to their members/through their networks. Everyone agreed to this groups membership being published on innogy s website and to be contacted via email. Future meetings It is intended that meetings will be held on a monthly basis initially with the exception of August due to the holiday season. ACTIONS from this meeting Kathryn Harries to circulate copies of the Caithness Conversation research project to the group and links to the procurement process recently undertaken at innogy s Mynydd y Gwair Wind Farm (www.innogy.com/mynyddygwair) Kathryn Harries to write to the Community Councils informing them of the advisory group process and explaining when and how they will be consulted on progress with the fund. innogy to update their website with these notes