Note Of The Eighth Meeting of the Ofcom Community Radio Fund Panel held at Riverside House, 2a Southwark Bridge Road, London, on Wednesday 30 January 2008

Chairman’s Introduction

1. The Chairman welcomed colleagues to the eighth meeting of the Ofcom Community Radio Fund Panel. Panel members Kevin Carey, Richard Hilton and Thomas Prag were present throughout. Ofcom support staff were also present throughout.

Minutes of the previous Meeting

2. The minutes of the Community Radio Fund Panel Meeting held on 26 September 2007 were agreed as an accurate record.

Matters Arising

3. The Chairman noted that, following the Panel’s September meeting, a letter had been drafted which was then sent by Lord Currie to the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport. (The September meeting had been called to discuss an appropriate response to the Minister for Creative Industries’ letter to Ofcom asking for Ofcom’s views on the future use of the Fund.) The Chairman informed the Panel that a reply had been received which had been circulated to members for information.

4. Members were updated in relation to the Digital Radio Working Group which included community radio within its remit.

Community radio fund grant reports

5. Members were updated in relation to the Community Radio Fund Grant reports from the 2006/07 awards. It was noted that 39 reports were due to be received in April 2008. Members noted that a full report on the reports received back would be given at the next meeting.

Community radio fund grant award applications

6. The Panel noted that fifty two valid applications had been received requesting grants.

7. A further six applications were submitted by groups that were not yet on air. The Panel noted that guidance to applicants had made it clear that the Panel would not consider applications for community radio stations in this round of awards which were not broadcasting as at 30 January 2008. Therefore these six applications were not eligible for consideration at the meeting.

8. The Panel noted that the remaining fund available for the financial year was £160,399.56.

9. The Chairman declared a conflict of interest in respect of one of the applicants and therefore did not join in the discussions or decision in respect of this application.

10. The Panel gave full and careful consideration to each application and awarded grants which amounted to a total of £160,390 to twelve applicants. A total of forty applications were not awarded grants.

11. The Panel agreed that a statement summarising the Panel’s decisions to award the grants would be published in due course.

12. The Panel noted that three community radio stations to which awards had been made in June 2007 were not yet broadcasting. The Panel agreed that should these stations remain off-air by 31 March 2008 they would not be given a grant from the Fund. The Panel agreed that any unallocated amounts would be re-awarded.

Any other business

13. The Panel agreed that any stations which submit an application for consideration in the first round for 2008/09 should have commenced broadcasting before the next Panel meeting.

14. The Panel agreed that the rules of the Fund would be amended so that there would no longer be a lower limit for applications. It was agreed that the wording of the application form would be amended to reflect this change and that the Panel strongly advised applicants to refer to the guidance and previous awards when making their application.

Date of next meeting

15. It was agreed a meeting would be held on 18 June 2008 for the purposes of considering the first round of awards for 2008/09.

16. A provisional date of 28 January 2009 was set for the purposes of considering the second round of awards for 2008/09.

17. There being no further business the meeting closed.

June 2008