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Present:

Gene Ashe Royal Berkshire Fire Service
Vinnie McCann Transition Town Maidenhead/Waltham Place
John Chetter Maidenhead Chamber of Commerce
Lisa Clark Victim Support
Tim De Meyer Thames Valley Police
Bob Ellis East Berks EBP
Linda Evans JobCentrePlus
Carolyn Finlay Berkshire East PCT
Patricia Lattimer Citizens Advice Bureau
Hilary Murgatroyd Thames Water
John Petitt Maidenhead District Housing Association
Peter Thorn Berkshire College of Agriculture
David Walls TVP
Fiona Winrow Windsor & Maidenhead Voluntary Action


Ian Trenholm (Chairman) RBWM Chief Executive
Cllr Mrs Bateson (Vice Chairman) RBWM
Cllr Chelani RBWM
Anita Cleare RBWM, Family Support Service Manager
Nicola Davidson RBWM Partnership Co-ordinator
Andrew Elkington RBWM Head of Policy & Performance
Jo Elsey RBWM, Children’s Trust
Liz Hornby RBWM Democratic Services
Harjit Hunjan RBWM Community & Business Partnerships Manager
Brian Martin RBWM Community Safety Co-ordinator
Angela Wellings RBWM Head of Children’s Commissioning

Apologies

There were none.

Welcome by Chairman

Ian Trenholm welcomed members to the forum and outlined the Agenda for the meeting.

Sustainable Community Strategy

Councillor Mrs Bateson commented that the Sustainable Community Strategy was due to go before Cabinet and was a partnership rolling programme.

Harjit Hunjan reported the next stage was delivering outcomes with the Board to monitor performance. Nicola Davidson and Harjit Hunjan were presently devising an Action Plan template, which will be circulated to partners, and the Ambition Groups would report progress at each subsequent Community Partnerships Board.

Living Here. It was believed that the Royal Borough was above average and the figures were queried. It was agreed that the figures would be looked at again. It was however noted that the figures would quickly become out of date and it was agreed that the Board would be updated annually.

The Board agreed to approve the report.

Ambition Group Performance Update

Healthier Communities

Carolyn Finlay reported that under NI146 – Adults with a learning disability, that Legoland were assisting to achieve this target. The Board noted that Smoking Cessation had achieved target along with all the other LAA Local Targets.

NI 8 had a number of targets to be achieved, namely –

Ø New leisure centre opened Cox Green with expansion £1.3m building programme
Ø Over 60’s free swimming
Ø Carers free membership for gym & swim in 3 leisure centres
Ø ‘Come and Try it’ sessions
Ø Smile expansion with 6 new sessions this year and 3 activity competitions
Ø Walking sessions
Ø GP referral scheme continued to expand
Ø 3 new grass pitches for football and rugby and new all weather pitch at Cox Green
Ø £2m capital programme on open spaces, new pavilion at Braywick
Ø Sports Bug, 15 May – 28 May 2010
Ø 5 Green Park flags and raised profile of outdoor spaces

Children & Young People

The Board noted that information was being shared securely between services and had adopted the East Berkshire Information Sharing Protocol and the Information Sharing Community Agreement (Children and Young People) which was produced in partnership with Berkshire Shared Services.

LAA 3.2 was believes to be a teachers assessment only and GOSE had been requested to confirm this.

LAA 2.1 & 2.2 was only available annually.

Safer Communities

The Board noted that NI 26 – Serious Acquisitive Crime was at amber – theft from vehicles was 35% down on previous figures although this was a considered to be a difficult issue to tackle but that the situation was improving.

The Thames Valley Police commented that a survey on the perception of how they and the Royal Borough were dealing with crime was being undertaken, the results of which were due in the near future. Initial results were that there was a 1.5% improvement across the Thames Valley area.

LAA - Anti-Social Behaviour. There were currently 13 ABCs with interventions which had been completed. There were 15 more which had been agreed and would be completed within the next 6 months. Assuming a worst case 50% breach rate there was still a strong chance of success. It was noted that there were only 5 more to obtain before an LAA Award was achieved.

Stronger Communities

The Board noted that the local PVE steering group had now been rebranded as ‘One Borough’ which was a group who fed into the Stronger Ambition Group. There were representatives from the Muslim youth community and an action plan was being developed to drive the work forward. A toolkit had been developed for schools, which would help them identify and work with young people at risk.

The number of Volunteers with a disability had increased since the report was published, from 150 to 171 which was above target. The targets ‘Volunteers from BME backgrounds’ and ‘Volunteers with no qualifications’ were below target and it was suggested to engage people who are currently out of work or not in education and encourage them to volunteer.

It was noted that funding would run out in March but it was hoped to continue until September or October and funding was being sought.

Fiona Winrow reported that the WMVA had seen the highest numbers of volunteers in 2009.

The recommendation to the Board was –

Ø Advice was required on how to further encourage and engage with volunteer groups (incentives, ways to communicate).
Ø Information was required from Partner organisations on volunteer numbers.

Sustainable Environment

The Board noted that –

NI155 – 373 homes were delivered
NI198 – Transport target was at amber
NI186 – Reducing CO₂ emissions. A National ’10:10’ initiative – in addition to RBWM who had signed up to the pledge of a 10% CO₂ reduction in 2010, this group would act as champion for the Partnership. The ambition groups planned to support and encourage local organisations to join the initiative by creating a source of advice – on practical, local, accessible ways that local businesses could do their bit. Benefits expected to include –

Ø influencing the business sector in a new way
Ø providing the business sector with a further anchor into the Partnership.

The Berkshire local authorities had jointly developed the School Travel Excellence Programme (STEP) – an accreditation and awards programme for School Travel Plans, which encouraged schools to implement and maintain their School Travel Plans and rewarded good performance.

It was noted that a new Flood Forum had been set up and had met on 14 December 2009 where the Terms and Conditions were agreed. A progress report would be brought to the Board.

Economic Vitality and Inclusion

The Board noted that the group had agreed to structure itself to focus on two priority areas – Skills and Employment and How to Support Local Businesses. The group would also seek to get involvement of local businesses and increase awareness of the GROW programme.

Increase employment rates within local area: This target was supported by a dedicated GROW Our Own member of staff who was funded via a Pump Priming Grant. There were 54 unlikely to be met due to the economic situation and the specifics of the client group.

JobCentre Plus reported they were offering help to executives through their Executive Job Clubs which were tailored to their specific requirements. The JobCentre Plus also reported that they would be involved in a local skills and employment event in April 2010 to assist local residents.

Work Plan Discussion

The Board noted that the work programme for the year ahead was being researched at present by Nicola Davidson and Harjit Hunjan, and once a survey of Community Partnership Board members had been undertaken, a new programme would be circulated.

Supporting Families

Ian Trenholm commented that many different agencies were involved in supporting families within the Royal Borough. This included issues such as how funding may best be directed to families and how to address inequalities which was considered an important issue. It was noted that focus on children was a particular issue as was the opportunity to deal with adults too and then connecting all the programmes together for the benefit of the family as a whole.

Anita Cleare presented “Why To We Need To Think Family?” and referred to a presentation of slides (attached) and the following points were noted –

Ø that anybody could feed into the scheme which would then look at priorities. Part of the purpose was to bring Youth Offending figures down;
Ø that evidence of issues families had experienced. It was noted that learning problems and education problems had declined as well as ASB’s.

The meeting then broke into working groups to discuss.

Feedback:

Table 1 – Total Place Initiative. There were 13 pilot schemes which the government was keep to promote. County Council had applied for single status although this was not achieved. However, through the initiative the government Total Place. It was noted that different Councils were looking at different areas and getting agencies together to therefore save money.

Table 2 – Communication. It was noted it would be difficult to identify just one person, especially in volunteering. Key workers would visit key agencies to learn how each operates.

Table 3 – Welcome the opportunity to be more efficient with no duplication. Information sharing and getting over protocols was also an issue. Work with the Drug and Alcohol team was developing well. It was also noted that families tend to be suspicious of official agencies.

Any Other Business

Fiona Winrow asked if the Overarching Communications Strategy was being addressed. Harjit Hunjan commented that work had started.

Summary and Close

Ian Trenholm thanked all those who had attended the meeting and looked forward to –

Ø New Plan, Building Ascot Plan
Ø Final Push – towards completing the LAA targets with Ambition Groups thinking and working on that final push.
Ø Think Family – Total Place. For the Board to think about how funding was being spent and putting in place a practical programme.

Next meeting

The next meetings of the Community Partnership Board were –

Tuesday 27 April 2010 at 8.30am – Council Chamber, Town Hall, Maidenhead