LOCAL STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIP – EXECUTIVE DELIVERY BOARD
Minutes
DATE 8 March 2010
VENUE Minster Room, 20 George Hudson Street
PRESENT ExDB Members: Terry Atkinson, York Economic Partnership
Charlie Croft, York@Large
Dave Hannan, Safer York Partnership
Colin Stroud, Chair, Inclusive York Forum
Cllr. Andrew Waller, Chair & York Economic Partnership
Jacqui Warren, York Environment Partnership
In Attendance: Kate Bowers, Head of Neighbourhood Management
Anna Knight, GOYH
Fiona Williams, Head of Libraries
Secretariat: Nigel Burchell, Head of Strategic Partnerships
Denise Simms, Senior Partnership Development Officer
APOLOGIES Kersten England, CYC Chief Executive
Rachel Johns, Chair, Healthy City Board
Julia Massey, Manager, Learning City York
Roger Ranson, York Economic Partnership
Lisa Winward, Safer York Partnership
1 WELCOME AND APOLOGIES
Apologies were received from Kersten England, Rachel Johns, Julia Massey, Roger Ranson and Lisa Winward.
2 MEETING MINUTES AND MATTERS ARISING
The minutes of the meeting held on 9 December 2009 were agreed.
Good News Stories – Partners were informed that although the communication meeting, which had been planned for 8 January, hadn’t gone ahead, progress had been made in developing the council newspaper for partner news stories. The aim had also been to start to pull together good news stories, promote activities and share communication plans where possible. Comments from partners included:
· Safer York / Police briefings were often interpreted negatively by the press;
· News sharing in this way would help to promote initiatives amongst partners and for everyone to know how they could play their part;
· Publicity was not often linked back to Without Walls as the originator of the scheme and it should be;
· There hadn’t been too many negative headlines recently regarding the Gary Craig BME report or the JRF Travellers report, however it was difficult to influence what the press printed;
· It would be helpful to know what activities might be coming up well ahead so that as a partnership we could plan ahead in terms of press releases;
· E-newsletter content could be shared with the council’s marketing team to use for press releases;
· It would be preferable to plan ahead and report as a group rather than as individual organisations for cross-cutting issues e.g. the travellers report
Action 1 – CS to forward the plan for volunteer communication to NB
Action 2 – The secretariat would convene a special meeting of the Executive Delivery Board to further discuss issues of communication
LAA Delivery Fund – The last formal report on progress with LAA Delivery Fund projects had been issued in December. The second round of monitoring information would be submitted in May to enable a formal report to be produced for the June Executive Delivery Board meeting.
3 LAA REVIEW / REFRESH 2009-10
Partners were informed that the refreshed LAA had been signed off by Full Council and the WOW Partnership. The refresh had only applied to indicators that were deemed to be directly affected by the recession and for York that included:
· NI 116 – Proportion of children in poverty
· NI 152 – Working age people on out of work benefits
· NI 155 – Number of affordable homes delivered (gross)
· NI 166 – Average earnings of employees in the area
· NI 171 – VAT registration rates
Anna Knight confirmed that the GOYH Performance Picture had been produced by pulling together performance data from our reports, the perspectives of GOYH Policy Leads and our comments on planned actions. The reports had been used to produce a general progress report for the region, which was forwarded to central government in February. York’s use of LAA Delivery Funding had been highlighted as an example of good practice to CLG. It was suggested that the document could be used for our own performance monitoring purposes, by perhaps updating it on a six monthly basis. Partners comments on review and refresh included:
· NI 188 was not included in the performance picture as it was a local target and only designated indicators were included;
· The RAG ratings included in the document refer to pre-refresh risk ratings;
· The police had started to prioritise confidence based measures.
Action 3 – Partners would ensure that the Secretariat were kept up to date with any changes in terms of indicators and RAG ratings.
4 PARTNERSHIP NEWS EXCHANGE
Partners had received a document that was initially produced for the last WoW Partnership meeting in February. It was used to highlight the current priorities and to keep news flowing amongst partners.
5 LEARN AND THRIVE FINANCIAL TRAINING
Fiona Williams, Head of Libraries and Heritage, gave a presentation on the partnership between Aviva and the Council to deliver financial capability training (Slides attached with meeting papers below). Aviva had contributed £300k over three years (2008-11), which had been used to provide workshops, school work and training for community educators e.g. housing staff. Volunteer presenters from Aviva and the council were delivering the training from libraries.
Initially it had been difficult to get people to attend the courses and as a result a community marketing toolkit was developed for library staff to use. This would form part of the legacy of the project as library staff could apply it to any project.
The programme offered a range of general courses, but also bespoke workshops could be developed on request. It had been found that a particularly high number of people with disabilities were attending the courses. Fifty key workers had also been trained to be 1:1 better budgeting coaches. The programme would be evaluated by York St. John University, who would also be conducting a longitudinal study to identify the benefits of the scheme.
It was thought that the use of libraries had helped attendance on the courses, since there was no stigma attached to visiting the library. In addition, it would soon be possible to sign up the North Yorkshire Credit Union at any library soon.
Comments from Partners included:
· It would be helpful to link the financial inclusion programme with the work going on in the Kingsway West area regarding benefits take-up;
· It would be possible for some of the courses to be run at the weekend (including Sunday when the new library opened);
Action 4 – Partners were asked to signpost the financial inclusion courses within their networks and to consider development of bespoke courses for particular customer groups.
Action 5 – TA to attend a meeting of the Learn and Thrive Project Board to assist in linking the programme to the Kingsway West Pilot.
6 QUARTER 3 2009-10 PERFORMANCE REPORT
Partners had received the latest LAA target progress for the third quarter of 2009/10. It was noted that:
· Of the 50 LAA indicators, there were 32 where forecast information was available to assess whether they were on course to meet the 2009/10 target. Of these two thirds were on course to meet the target.
· Rag ratings had been updated since the last meeting and the only gaps that were left signified where new data was expected shortly that could influence the risk rating. These would be updated as new data came in.
· The skills targets (NI 163 – 165) risk ratings had been left blank until future Adult Education funding levels were confirmed. Learning City York were anticipating between a 10 – 25% reduction on current funding levels and since Adult Ed courses could be the first step on the ladder for someone returning to learning or building up learning credits, they were naturally concerned about the potential impact on these indicators.
· Teenage conception targets i.e. 50% reduction across the country, had been recognised as being unrealistic by central government and as a result all areas with the target had been given the option of removing this indicator from their LAA reward calculation. York had accepted this offer with the proviso that teenage pregnancy continued to be a priority for York through the LAA.
· In May Central Government would be producing an LAA reward table for each Govt. Office area and this will double up as a reward calculator for each place. Consequently, the tool could be used at future meetings to highlight anticipated LAA reward levels using forecast data.
Partners comments regarding red risk indicators included:
· NI 1 – Cohesion work was ongoing .
· NI 8 – The Just 30 physical activity campaign had launched recently. Links with the Cycle City team had been developed. A press Campaign to highlight one family’s physical activity diary was planned. A Just 30 Fair would take place in the Museum Gardens on 31 July. Energise was now open and headcount figures for attendees were being collected. The CYC budget had been reprioritised to reflect the importance of increasing physical activity levels and Community Investment Funding of £20k had been sought to fund staffing.
· NI 56 – The Healthy Weight Active Lives Group were taking a life cycle approach to the topic of obesity and this had recently become a council scrutiny topic, which was proving to be very helpful. The maximum capacity for MEND courses had been increased from 12 to 14 to take account of people who dropped out before the course started. York Health Group were keen to lend their support to the programme by signposting to the course via GP surgeries. In terms of data, National Child Measurement figures for 9/10 showed a marked improvement on last year’s performance. Although the target of 15.4% had not been hit, hence the red rating, the rate of increase had slowed from a 1% rise in 2008/9, to a 0.1% rise for 9/10. In addition, there had been a reduction in obesity levels for reception year children of 1.5%.
· NI 112 - Teenage Pregnancy conception data received February 2010 (and referring to 2008) indicated a welcome decrease in teenage conceptions in the city. The 2008 rate being 34 per thousand females aged 15-17. This was the same rate as the 1998 baseline year but indicated a 0.1% rise due to rebased population data. There were 28 fewer conceptions than 2007 (rate 42.4) which was a 25% decrease. However, latest aggregated data relating to 2005-7 showed that there had been a rise in the under 16 rate with fewer conceptions ending in termination, meaning that more young women were choosing to have their babies. Consequently, attention would be focused on working with primary and secondary schools; colleges; parents and the reintegration of teenage parents into Education Employment & Training. Teenage pregnancy hotspot wards would be targeted, including early intervention on a range of risky behaviours. The hotspot wards Westfield, Clifton, Hull Road and Heworth closely linked with some of the most deprived wards according to IMD scores.
· NI 117 – No update was available for this red risk indicator.
· NI 120 – A graph was circulated that showed all age all cause mortality rates for females had been on the increase since 2005, however the current rate was much lower than it had been 7 years ago. Regionally and nationally the rates were decreasing, but the rates were lower in York and the amount by which we differed was statistically significant. HCB actions to mitigate included preventing unhealthy behaviour, ensuring uptake of screening and speedy access to diagnostics and treatment.
· NI 188 – It was expected that Level 1 would be achieved by 1 April, which was in line with the target.
Action 6 – A progress update was requested for NI 117 NEET.
Action 7 – An explanation as to the causes of the increase in NI 120 female mortality rates was requested.
7 PARTNERSHIP IMPROVEMENT PLAN
Partners were presented with the WOW Improvement Plan, which brought together actions arising from the Conference, CAA and WOW review. The Executive Delivery Board would monitor implementation of the plan and partnerships were asked if they recognised the actions attributed to them. Partners comments on the plan included:
· The issues included should be more dynamic and action based;
· JCP had done some local recruitment fairs to target hotspot areas;
· The Credit Union loan from CYC had made savings of £400k to the local economy;
· Good news stories and case studies should be captured as part of the monitoring process;
· The e-newsletter content should be forwarded to the council’s marketing team for use in press releases;
· It was important to consider other methods of communication as not everyone got their information through the press;
· A programme of planned communication over the year would enable partners to support stories as they arose;
· The action attributed to York@Large regarding improvement of sports facilities did not match their focus, which was currently the Just 30 campaign;
Action 8 – The secretariat would amend the WoW Improvement Plan in line with Partners comments.
8 WARD PARTNERSHIP CONFERENCE
Kate Bowers, Head of Neighbourhood Management, attended the meeting to inform Partners of plans to introduce new partnership delivery mechanisms at the neighbourhood level. More consultation and partnership input would be required to work out the finer detail, however a conference was planned to take place in May to discuss it further. Partners were asked to commit to attending the event and to also to promote the event to their staff. Partners comments included: