Ward Working and the Budget

During the budget process a number of people have suggested raiding the Ward Working budget to pay for other items.  I think this fundamentally misunderstands the logic of ward working.

Ward working was set up under the last Labour administration in Brent, which plagiarised adapted the idea from Newcastle.  It is fundamentally about community engagement rather than handing out grants.  For this reason, complaints that it has too large an "administrative" budget are misguided.  The supposed "administrative" budget is in fact an engagement budget.  Propoerly engaging with the public and finding out what the community wants, especially in such an extraordinarily multi-ethnic and fast moving community as Brent, is no easy task.

The £20,000 grant that each ward is allocated is there so that when an issue is identified, there is at least some money available to address it.  As most problems require money to solve, an engagement process that had no money attached, would risk seeming impotent.  For the same reason, the ward working budget for each ward cannot be entirely swallowed up by one project.  If money was entirely allocated at the start of the year, or subject to an understanding that it would always be handed to the same groups, it would cease to be useful as an engagement tool.