ITEM NO.

REPORT OF THE LEADER OF THE COUNCIL

TO CABINET

24TH NOVEMBER 2004

TITLE: LOCAL PUBLIC SERVICE AGREEMENT- Second Generation (LPSA-2)

RECOMMENDATIONS:

a)That Cabinet endorses the overall framework and proposed outcomes within this report as the basis for the initial 2nd Generation Local Public Service Agreement (LPSA-2) submission to the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister on 26th November.

b)That Cabinet notes the timescale for further developing LPSA-2, which will see a final submission containing outcomes, indicators and ‘stretched’ targets forwarded to ODPM by the end of February 2005. Dependent on ODPM, an agreement should then be reached to enable implementation of LPSA-2 in April 2005.

c)That Cabinet indicates if there are any priorities reflected in this report that must be regarded as essential elements of the final submission. Currently, there are more priorities/outcomes in this initial submission than will be required in the final submission.

d)That Cabinet considers any further opportunities to develop ‘Explorer Partnerships’ with any particular Government Departments.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:

The report sets out the proposed priority areas within Salford’s 2nd Generation Local Public Service Agreement initial submission.

BACKGROUND DOCUMENTS:

-Building on Success, A guide to the second generation of local public service agreements (ODPM, December 2003)

-Building on Success, A second generation of local public service agreements (LGA, November 2003)

-The Community Plan

-Neighbourhood Renewal Strategy

-Salford City Council pledges

-BVPP Annual Review

-CPA Annual Review

-Lead Member Reports

CONTACT OFFICERS:

Elaine Davis, Principal Strategy and Resources Officer 0161 793 3068

Paul Mckenna, Group Leader, Strategy and Resources 0161 793 3421

1.0INTRODUCTION AND PURPOSE OF THE REPORT

1.1The purpose of this report is to set out the proposed priority areas within Salford’s 2nd Generation Local Public Service Agreement initial submission – to be forwarded to ODPM by 26th November.

1.2On 29th September, Cabinet received a report setting out the key elements of guidance on the 2nd Generation Local Public Service Agreement together with the timescale for submission. It indicated that:

a)The 2nd Generation LPSA carries with it many similarities to the Round 1 programme, with two key exceptions:

The focus is now on achieving outcomes rather than outputs;

There is now an opportunity to develop ‘Explorer Partnerships’ – a relationship between the Authority and a specific Government Department to develop particular aspects of the submission or remove obstacles to delivery.

1.3In terms of similarities with LPSA Round 1, Pump-priming, Performance Reward Grant, the identification of Freedoms and Flexibilities, and an emphasis on changing mainstream service delivery remain key elements.

1.4Since that time there have been a number of discussions with the The overall timescale for submission of Salford’s LPSA-2 is as follows:

Timeframe / LPSA Progress
November 26th 2004 / Initial submission of priorities to ODPM
November to December / Negotiation on priorities with ODPM
January – Feb 2005 / Indicators and targets specified under each priority and negotiated with ODPM
April 2005 / LPSA II agreement with ODPM leading to implementation.

1.5Members should note that ODPM have indicated that whilst they will do their best to achieve an agreement by April 2005, current negotiations with other authorities are taking approximately 6 months to complete. If the same applies to Salford, it is likely that our LPSA-2 agreement will not be signed until June 2005, but targets could be set retrospectively to start from April 2005. This delay will not affect the agreement financially as pump-priming and reward grants will still be applied at the full level.

2.0DETAIL OF THE REPORT

2.1The initial submission of priorities set out in this report reflects the co-alignment of Cabinet and LSP key priorities in terms of raising the profile/image of the City, responsive services/increased public participation and raising ambition/aspirations.

2.2This ‘joining-up’ of strategic priorities is an important message within the LPSA-2 submission, highlighting the progress made towards addressing some of the issues within the first CPA assessment. The increasing importance of effective neighbourhood management promoted by the City Council and LSP is a cross-cutting element of the submission, with outcomes and SMART targets helping to drive forward its profile and importance as one of the key tools towards quality service delivery.

2.3The framework for the initial submission is based on four themes which contain 12 key outcomes for the next three years. From these, specific indicators and targets will be generated at a later stage. The four themes are:

Theme One: Raising The Image And Profile Of The City – with a focus on changing the perception of the City as a place to live and invest.

Theme Two: Raising Ambitions and Aspirations – with a focus on raising educational attainment, improving employability, reducing health inequalities, and promoting independence through positive intervention.

Theme Three: Narrowing the Gap in Salford West through effective Neighbourhood Management – promoting a geographical focus in terms of delivering key services to close the gap in deprivation between the worst and best performing neighbourhoods across the City. The proposed focus of this theme is Salford West.

Theme Four: Delivering responsive and effective public services –focusing on indicators that will demonstrate the City’s commitment to putting local people at the heart of service delivery.

2.4All four themes are clearly inter-linked and will contain a strong neighbourhood focus, building on the principle of ‘Narrowing the Gap’ between the worst and best performing neighbourhoods across the City.

2.5A number of underlying key principles will also underpin the submission:

a)That LPSA-2 will be co-aligned with priorities identified within Salford’s Community Plan and Neighbourhood Renewal Strategy which will enable priorities and targets to be integrated within a wider strategic performance framework;

b)That indicators and targets set should be consistent with key performance indicators (PI’s) and priorities for Salford.

c)That activities taken forward and resources utilised should not focus on time limited small scale interventions, but should focus on changing the way in which mainstream services are delivered in the longer term;

d)That key partners are actively involved in the setting, delivery and monitoring of key priorities within the LPSA. The LSP and its seven Strategic Delivery Partnerships will therefore play a key role in the LPSA.

e)That effective neighbourhood management is the key to improving local service delivery and narrowing the gap between the worst and best performing neighbourhoods.

2.6The 12 proposed outcomes set out under each of the four themes are consistent with the Community Plan and aligned to the 7 pledges of the council. Thus, there is a focus on employment, education, health, crime and the cross cutting issues of inclusion, children and young people and liveability.

2.7Should Cabinet endorse this approach, the next stage will be to develop a series of indicators and targets under each of the key outcomes. The submission will also need to establish whether there are any freedoms and flexibilities required to remove obstacles to delivery, or whether the concept of an ‘Explorer Partnership’ between a specific Government Department and the Authority could help to progress particular aspects identified within the submission.

3.0THEME ONE - RAISING THE IMAGE AND PROFILE OF THE CITY

3.1The main outcome under this theme is to build confidence in the City to enable an ‘Increase in people choosing Salford as the city in which to live, study, work, invest and visit’. This outcome would encompass both existing and new residents and would serve to help reduce the perception of crime. Four key outcomes have been developed under this theme:

3.2Priority 1 – Reducing the overall levels of crime and disorder across the City. Government have made a commitment through a national PSA that all authorities will be required to reduce crime by 15% over the next three years – however, some authorities with the highest crime levels will be required to reduce their figures by 20%. Salford falls within this category. Salford’s Crime and Disorder Partnership has made significant progress in recent years and during the course of the last national PSA (2000 – 2003) Salford Division performed best of all GM divisions by reducing overall crime by 19%. Whilst it will be challenging to maintain this performance, the Crime and Disorder Partnership will be looking to stretch the national PSA target even further than the 20% expected. One of the complementary outcomes associated with this will be reduce people’s perception of crime across the City, improving confidence at resident and investor level.

Cabinet should be aware that the Fire Authority has also requested that a Local PSA be included under this theme focused on reducing levels of arson across the City. There are approximately 3000 incidents of deliberate fires costing in excess of £16 million each year, and the Fire Authority wish to stretch their national PSA target further locally. Advice from the Community Safety Unit and the Police is that this particular priority for the Fire Service would be more appropriate for inclusion within the Crime and Disorder Strategy 2005/08.

3.3Priority 2 - Improving environmental quality and maximising the use of green space across the City.

3.31There are two strands to this outcome:

a)The first strand is toimprove levels of street cleanliness linked to the new statistical methodology in BVPI 199 - expressed as the % of people satisfied with the cleanliness standard in their neighbourhood. This particular issue has been a concern in many Community Committee areas and is reflected through the Quality of Life surveys and the MORI poll. This would have a geographical focus, targeted at particular neighbourhoods across the City.

b)The second strand is a City-wide theme aiming to promote and increase levels of biodiversity across the City through the creation of nature reserves. The creation of several more Local Nature Reserves will allow the Salford to become one of the first local authorities in the North West, if not the UK, to have its recommended quota of hectares assigned as Local Nature Reserves.

3.32Priority 3 - Increasing participation in cultural opportunities focused on engaging people from disadvantaged areas and groups. The recent Best Value Review of Culture and the CPA inspection of culture strategy and leisure have emphasised the need to embed culture strategically in the workings and delivery of the City Council and to increase uptake of cultural activities across the City. The inspection identified the need to increase participation from within the black and ethnic minority communities and asylum seekersin Salford. The aim is to focus on increasing participation amongst people living in disadvantaged areas and from certain community groups, including people from black and ethnic minorities and with disabilities and young people.

3.33Priority 4 - The final element of Theme 1 is focused on building new confidence levels in the City and will involve analysing people’s awareness and perception of the City as a place to live, study, work, invest and visit expressed as:

  • Increased awareness
  • Improved perceptions
  • Increased spend within the visitor economy
  • Improved housing market
  • Increase investment
  • Changing perceptions of crime

Research and baselines would be required to measure people’s awareness and perceptions with targets set to improve these. The research would have a City-wide and neighbourhood focus.

4.0THEME TWO: RAISING AMBITIONS AND ASPIRATIONS

4.1Many of the problems facing the city reflect the need to raise local people’s belief in their ability to achieve and make a difference to their lives and the life of their community. Issues such as a growing dependency culture, low levels of attainment and aspiration reflected in education and employment achievements, high levels of smoking and obesity contribute significantly to the levels of deprivation felt in many neighbourhoods.

4.2Many of the proposed outcomes below relate directly to national floor targets and are included as priorities within this LPSA II programme in recognition of the progress the city must still make to aspire to national average - rather than maintain a status quo around a national floor target. The message within this priority is about raising local people’s individual aspirations and ambitions to improve their quality of life. Four key outcomes have been developed:

4.3Priority 5 – Improving educational attainment

4.31At present there are four separate but interrelated strands that could potentially contribute to the overall outcome, which need to be prioritised for the final submission. These are:

a)Improving educational attainment focused on schools whose achievement falls significantly below the National Floor Target (NFT). The focus would be on 9 schools:

  • Harrop Fold (Little Hulton)
  • St Patricks (Eccles)
  • Cannon Williamson (Eccles) – though this may become a City Academy
  • Swinton High School
  • Hope High School (Claremont)
  • Buile Hill High School (Claremont)
  • Albion High School
  • Moorside (Swinton)
  • Wentworth (Eccles)

b)Improving attendance levels – by engaging young people at risk of exclusion in positive activity e.g. youth work, sport, arts development, that seeks to promote attendance at school. School attendance in Salford is currently below the national average at certain key stages. Young people who fail to attend school tend to have poor achievement levels at GCSE and poor prospects for employment. They are also more likely to engage in anti social behaviour.

c)Improving the transition and raising achievement at Key Stages 2 and 3. This would be achieved by developing a network of Homework Help Clubs in public libraries across the City and supporting the Time Out projects in the Youth Service, which enable young people to re- engage with formal learning. Achievement in the secondary phase in Salford is below the national average. Homework Help Clubs established in the more deprived areas of the city will give young people in key stages 2 and 3 access to ICT and book resources as well as support from Homework Co-ordinators, thus providing an accessible environment for children who find it hard to engage with learning in school and who have neither the facilities nor the encouragement to study at home. Working with the Youth Service will add value to this and provide additional out of school space.

d)Improving adult basic skills. The aim is to contribute to improved levels of education and employability amongst the adult population by increasing the number of adults with level one Basic Skills qualifications by 5% over 3 years.

4.4Priority 6 - Improving the employability of local people.

4.41This particular priority currently contains two strands:

a)Increasing the number of unemployed people from disadvantaged groups and communities gaining employment within the Public Sector. This builds on the position of the Council as a major employer in the City and it’s role as an exemplar organisation. It will focus on how the City Council and its key partners can use their resources to facilitate transition into work, with targets linked to the Best Value Performance Indicators relating to the diversity of the workforce.

b)To maximise opportunities for Salford residents to engage in employment and training through inward investment and development in the City. The Salford Construction Partnership (SCP) has been formed to specifically address difficulties of access to construction training and employment opportunities by disadvantaged groups/communities and aims to assist Salford residents into sustainable jobs, generated from the investment and development in the City. In particular, the SCP aims to harness the potential of the Housing Market Renewal construction programme over the next 10 years.

4.5Priority 7 - Tackling health inequalities and improving health outcomes across the city.

4.51There is a well-evidenced link between poor health and deprivation and this again is highlighted in the Index of Multiple Deprivation 2004. Life expectancy rates in Salford are significantly lower than national averages with national floor targets in danger of not being achieved. The focus will be on the ‘poorest people with poorest health in the poorest neighbourhoods’ with two priorities containing proxy indicators linked to life expectancy proposed:

a)The first is to reduce the prevalence of smoking in Salford in the most disadvantaged neighbourhoods and communities in the city.Smoking is the single, largest cause of preventable death in Salford. Smoking kills 10 people a week locally. Salford has a significantly higher level of smoking (38%) than nationally.

b)The second priority is to halt the rise in childhood and adult obesity by increasing levels of physical activity across Salford, focussing our actions in our most disadvantaged areas and challenged communities.The rise in childhood and adult obesity is a threat to the health of Salford people. National evidence suggests that people living in disadvantaged areas, and from certain groups, including older people, people from black and ethnic minorities and with disabilities, are not obtaining social, health and economic benefits from participation in sport and physical activity. The aim is to create more opportunities to support residents to undertake lifelong participation in physical activity and overcome the barriers that prevent these groups making sustained lifestyle behaviour change.

4.6Priority 8 – Promoting independence and Improving the Quality of Life of Vulnerable and Older People.

4.61Two strands are being considered under this outcome:

a)The first strand aims to improve the prospects, employability and quality of life for people aged 50+ with a focus on the economically inactive and those on incapacity benefit. The City has large numbers of economically inactive citizens coupled with high levels of chronic ill health and depression. Only 51% of those aged 50+ are economically active compared to 71% nationally, and over 28,200 are in receipt of Incapacity Benefit.

b)The second strand is focused on promoting benefit take-up with People Aged 60+ through Primary Health Care. This proposal builds on existing good practice and effective working partnerships. There is a long track record of doing take-up work in Salford particularly in conjunction with Corporate Services Housing/Council Tax administration. There is also a unique partnership between the City Council’s Welfare Rights Service and the CAB in delivering advice and income maximisation through selected GP practices and health centres with funding from the Primary Care Trust. This proposal would take this work one step further by pro-actively targeting those aged 60+ registered with GPs and particularly those who are not in receipt of Housing/Council Tax Benefit.