Agenda item

            The Committee was reminded that, at its meeting on 22nd June, a report regarding the proposed bursary scheme had been submitted.   At that meeting, the Members had been appraised of a range of similar schemes and a proposed pilot approach for year one of the Belfast Scheme had been presented as a means of commencing the scheme in the current academic year.  The proposal involved channelling support through the Belfast Metropolitan College for Further and Higher Education and the Prince’s Trust for other support to access education, training and employment.   An indicative split of £30,000 to the Prince’s Trust and £70,000 to the Metropolitan College had been proposed.

            The Director of Development explained that both organisations had been proposed due to their respective commitments to cover the administrative overheads attached to the scheme, as well as their ability to provide the required levels of financial accountability.   A commitment to monitor the impact of the intervention and to review the scheme before year two had been given.  He advised the Committee that the Development Committee, at its meeting on 20th November, had received an update on the progress of the Bursary Scheme as part of the overall Development Department update.  Some Members had raised concerns regarding the need to brand and to raise the profile of the Council’s investment in the scheme and had requested that a further update on the progress be submitted to the meeting of the Development Committee on 4th December.

            The Director of Development reported that, to date, a letter of offer had been signed and agreed with the Prince’s Trust for their activity.  Around £10,000 had already been allocated to 57 young people from disadvantaged areas of Belfast, with an average age of the recipient being twenty-one years.  Seventy-nine percent of those awards had been provided to young people living in the top 25% of deprived wards in Belfast and 96% (55 Awards) have been provided to young people who had been unemployed.  In terms of outcomes, 87% of young people who had received an award had achieved a positive outcome either moving into education, training or employment.  However, now that the programme was fully operational, it was expected that there would be an increased level of activity over the remainder of the financial year, with over 42 Awards currently in the pipeline over the next few months.

            With regard to the Belfast Metropolitan College’s work, eligibility criteria had been established: individuals must be resident in the Belfast City Council area; aged 16-24 at the date of the application; must meet the criteria set out by the College for the Higher Education bursary fund; and must be preparing to study or currently studying on a full-time further/higher/vocational education training course at levels 2-5 of one of the 20 priority courses which had been identified.  It was anticipated that the awards would be to a value of £500 and would be allocated only if it could be confirmed that the student completed at least 80% attendance at all classes and all appropriate examinations and assessments. 

            The Director reported that, given the timing of the programme, the Metropolitan College had not been able to include advance promotion of the scheme in any of its promotional literature for courses.  As a result, the funding available was not able to act as an incentive towards a particular course of study as had been initially intended.  However, the college was making progress in identifying those students who would potentially meet the eligibility criteria for the awards.  Following an update which had been provided at the meeting of the Development Committee on the 4th December, that Committee had proposed that the £70,000 amount allocated to the Belfast Metropolitan College bursaries for the current academic year be held and carried forward into the next financial year to allow greater profiling of the awards and to incentivise more young people to study in priority skills areas.  The Committee had requested also that consideration be given to the household income criteria set by the College for its existing bursary programme (currently £55,000) and suggested that the Council scheme should be set at a lower threshold however this decision required the agreement of the Strategic Policy and Resources Committee.

            The Committee noted the information which had been provided and acceded to the request by the Development Committee that the £70,000 allocated to the Belfast Metropolitan College bursaries for the current academic year be carried forward into the next financial year.