Meeting documents

Community Partnerships Board
Tuesday 4 March 2014 8.00 am



vii

COMMUNITY PARTNERSHIP BOARD

Tuesday 4 March 2014 at 8.30am
Council Chamber, Town Hall, Maidenhead

Present:

Sandra Baker DALC
Janet Greenland East Berkshire College
David Knowles-Leak FSB
Mike Agate FSB
Karnail Pannu WAMCF
Dave Phillips Fire & Rescue
Chris O’Hare Citizens Advice Bureau

Cllr Mrs Bateson (Vice-Chairman) RBWM, Lead Member for Partnerships
Debra Beasley RBWM Community and Voluntary Sector Officer
Wendy Binmore RBWM Democratic Services Officer
Andrew Elkington RBWM Head of Policy & Performance
Andrew Green RBWM Partnership Co-ordinator
Harjit Hunjan RBWM Community & Business Partnerships Manager
Rutuja Kulkarni RBWM Head of Public Health
Brian Martin RBWM Community Safety Co-ordinator
Mike McGaughrin RBWM Managing Director and Chairman of the CPB
Catherine Mullins RBWM / CCG Strategic Commissioning
David Scott RBWM Head of Education, Strategy & Commissioning

Apologies

Ralph Facey Radian Housing
Astrid Campbell WMVA

1. Welcome by Chairman

Councillor Mrs Bateson, Vice-Chairman welcomed members to the meeting and introduced the new Chairman, Mike McGaughrin to the Board who is also the Managing Director of the Council. Mike McGaughrin stated that Partnerships between groups and the Council were vital for communities and residents to benefit from.

2. Minutes of the meeting held on 30 October 2013

The Minutes were approved as a true record of the meeting. There were no matters arising not otherwise covered on the agenda.

Actions arising from Community Partnership Board Meeting 30 October 2013

Schematic Created
Andrew Green, Partnership Co-Ordinator stated he had produced a schematic which showed the groups and various boards and how they interacted with each other. He said the had tried to link them through the Community Partnership Board and felt the role of the Board was to pick up on the gaps where things were not happening. The schematic diagram was also an attempt to show how Task and Finish groups linked to the Partnership. Karnail Pannu stated it was a question of getting hold of all the different groups and progressing with them together. Harjit Hunjan, Community & Business Partnerships Manager commented the idea was to have on one piece of paper, all the different groups and partnerships. The schematic was only the starting point and there was more to be added to make it more comprehensive. The Vice-Chairman mentioned the Partnership started with workshops and out of that came themes of what to progress with. She added they were now at that situation with Task and Finish groups. The Chairman stated the schematic captured activity linked to the Community Partnership Board but that it was necessary to capture everything and then work out who was going to monitor all the activities of the groups to make sure there was no duplication of work. Brian Martin, Community Safety Co-ordinator stated it would be of benefit to the Partnership and the Borough to include the Youth Offending Team. David Scott, Head of Education, Strategy & Commissioning said he was keen to ensure there was something that demonstrated the links between the Community Partnership Board and other groups and boards existed. The Chairman stated there was a need to know who all the partner agencies and boards were and then find out how they linked in. Rutuja Kulkarni, Head of Public Health stated it was the first meeting she had attended of the Community Partnership Board but she had started to form links with other teams and it was very important to work with partners in that setting.

Brian Martin commented Grow Our Own should get more young people enrolled which would reduce crime. If the Partnership could see all the groups’ key aims, they could see how they feed into the core aims of the Community Partnership Board. The Chairman agreed and added finding out who the partners were and what their relationships were should be the first thing to look at following the drawing up of the schematic. The Vice-Chairman stated the Housing Associations started a Social Enterprise Scheme and the Borough also had a Social Enterprise Scheme therefore, the Community Partnership Board could link up services that way. David Knowles-Leak, FSB stated it would be good to have a very brief description of what each of the organisations did to outline what everyone’s role was within the Terms of Reference. The Community & Business Partnerships Manager requested input on the groups or organisations that were missing on the schematic and that it would help to know their role in the community and not just their role within the Board. That information would be added to the schematic.

Action: The Community & Business Partnerships Manager and the Community Partnership Co-Ordinator to formulate a brief summary of partnerships and groups and how they link together.

Apprenticeship Statistics
The Community & Business partnerships Manager had spoken to the National Apprenticeship Service but, they were unable to provide figures on how many apprentices stayed on in work once their apprenticeships ended. He hoped to have more information available at the next Community Partnership Board meeting.

Proposed Changes to the Board’s Structure and Terms of Reference Arising from Recent Audit Report
The Partnership Co-Ordinator stated there had been an audit carried out and the report that followed questioned the Board’s Terms of Reference and how the group was operating. The report also suggested the Terms of Reference should be reviewed after one year. Following that, the Partnership Co-Ordinator had added an introductory piece but kept the rest of the Terms of Reference the same. The current Terms of Reference had a main focus on the Community Partnership Board but, some discussion was required to ascertain if there should be an executive board and if there should be, who would be on it and how often would it meet. The Vice-Chairman commented it would be a good idea to start off with just the Board and if it was felt later on that an executive was required, it would be looked into. The Head of Public Health suggested the group be more explicit and add if the Board included wider community groups or if it was just within the community so that work done was not duplicated.

Action: Any further comments or suggestions for the Board’s Terms of Reference to be sent directly to The Community & Business Partnerships Manager and the Community Partnership Officer.

Update of Key Priority Areas

Intensive Family Support Project (IFS)
David Scott, Head of Education, Strategy & Commissioning, circulated the report and gave an update on the Intensive Family Support project detailing the following key points:
    The IFS Project was part of a National Government initiative to address 120,000 families that caused concern in terms of impact on communities.
    The project was now approaching its third year.
    The Borough had 140 families registered as part of the project
    The goal was to have 70 families registered by the end of February 2014; the Borough was on target to meet that goal.
    The scheme was a payment by results scheme lead by a team based in Ellington.
    It took approximately six to nine months intensive intervention with families to begin to see results but, occasionally, that could be longer.
    The numbers of families which signed up to the scheme were steady with between three and 10 families per month being identified.
    The target for 2014/15 was to have 140 families that required support to be helped by the Borough but, the figures were more likely to reach 210.
    The three year project had been extended to a fourth year which would allow the Borough to work with slightly less chaotic families that the original 140 targeted.
    There were 200-300 possible families which fell into the less chaotic category.
    The Borough had begun to see success with the families helped to date.
    A ‘taper out’ arrangement had been put in place so that troubled families could go back and use the services at a later date if they felt they were required.

There were three areas for discussion for the Community Partnerships Board:
    What could Partners contribute?
      o There had been good support arrangements in place and good examples of partnerships working together such as Police, Housing Associations and Community Wardens; what other support were providers able to give families?
    Identifying referrals
      o There had been a good supply to date of families being referred to the scheme; supply had almost matched capacity but, there was a need for partners to help identify chaotic families so that no one was missed. Some referrals had come from Health partners, the Police and Housing Associations. However, the Head of Education, Strategy & Commissioning stated he would be interested in other partners promoting the scheme and helping with referrals.
    Linking Priorities – the Head of Education, Strategy & Commissioning said he had started to identify overarching priorities but they had not been confirmed yet. The top five priorities were:
        o Early help
        o Early help and young people
        o Prevention and keeping people safe
        o Improved collaborative working
        o Education and helping young people to succeed.
    Partner input was welcomed.

The Chairman stated the project across the country was high on the government’s agenda with resources being made widely available. He was keen to work with and help with the project through Community Partnerships such as mentoring and coaching through partners such as the Fire Service. Chris O’Hare, Citizens Advice Bureau commented it was an opportunity to update key workers on what the Citizens Advice Bureau were able to do; Reading CAB had a coaching scheme where they recruited volunteers. Ralph Facey, Radian Housing stated their referrals team would have a hotline to teams within Children’s Services which would help link services. However unfortunately, the money which had been available to the Housing Association to help with supporting people had been cut but, £500,000 had been made available in employment support which could still be used to help.

Dave Philips, Fire & Rescue stated he had been working with the Director of Public Health; they had been looking to work towards and support education attainment and working with families using the Fire Service brand. Referrals and identifying communities was something the Fire Service was looking to work on through partnerships including the sharing of information on families so that they get the right help at the right time. Karnail Pannu, WAMCF suggested that his organisation was there anytime any of the partner organisations required help with cultural or language barriers that might be present. The Head of Public Health stated all health visitors were to be part of the Health Board and that was something that had been discussed with the Children’s teams. She added that her, Dave Philips and Alison Alexander, Strategic Director of Children's Services, were to meet and pick up on that point for discussion. The Vice-Chairman stated vulnerable people and fires had a tendency to go together and that a solution could be to fit smoke alarms in the homes of those over the age of 65. She added that the role of the Army had not been discussed and it was important to have the Army represented within the Community Partnerships Board as Windsor was a garrison town. The Vice-Chairman enquired about getting smoke alarms fitted and tested in all army quarters and that those leaving the army could become vulnerable.

The Head of Education, Strategy & Commissioning said key workers needed a huge range of skills so they identified the needs of families and then arranged what intervention was required with other professionals and partner agencies. The Community & Business Partnerships Manager explained that an external NEET group and the City Deal was there to support young people and they also worked with the borough in partnership. David Knowles-Leak, FSB stated it was really important for successful groups to act as motivation for young people.

Action: The Head of Education, Strategy & Commissioning to update what has happened with the Intensive Family Support Project prior to the next Community Partnerships Board meeting.

Health and Wellbeing – the wider determinants of health
Catherine Mullins, Health and Wellbeing Development, RBWM / CCG presented an update on the progress of the Health and Wellbeing Strategy – noted as a statutory requirement for Local Authorities and as a framework for the commissioning plan for health and social care activity as well as wider influences on health inequalities. Catherine Mullins provided a handout of the Joint Health and Wellbeing strategy and explained that the strategy was the overarching framework within which commissioning plans for the NHS, Social Care, Public Health and other services which the Health and Wellbeing Board agreed were relevant, were developed. The JHWS applied to:
    The whole population
    Across the life course (Covered all ages)
    Vulnerable people, excluded or hard to reach groups
    Carers and their families
    People who lived outside of the area, but receive services in the local authority area
    People who worked in the area

There was a large scale consultation on the high level priorities in the need to meet local needs and from the public consultation, there were three overarching themes that came through the responses:
    Supporting a Healthy Population
    Prevention and early intervention
    Enabling residents to maximise their capabilities and life chances.

Catherine Mullins explained some of the progress against the indicators of showing how the strategy helped residents to improve their health and wellbeing:
    Target to support 800 people to stop smoking per year: during Q1 and Q2, 393 people were supported to successfully quit smoking.
    To complete 1,500 NHS Healthchecks during 2013/14: AS at mid-January, 1,130 have been completed although results of those checks would not be available due to Data Protection laws.
    75% of older people who were eligible to have Flu Vaccinations: currently, target was at 69.3% (as at the end of January 2014) was equivalent to 16,084 people.

Catherine Mullins went on to update the Board on Prevention and Early Intervention strategies and also on enabling residents to maximise their capabilities and life chances within the JHWS. She requested the Community Partnership Board to continue to promote the strategy and requested input and continuous feedback from the Board to see what else could be done or included in the strategy or to promote it. Catherine Mullins explained there were hard links between what people did in younger lives contributed to what happened in older life and that it was possible to link data sets together to help improve the health of the community.

The Head of Public Health said she had a meeting planned with the Waste & Environmental Protection Manager to see how air quality linked with COPD and what could be done to support people and improve air quality. She added that it was taking time to work out where their public health vision fitted in with the Board and that maybe, during the refresh of the Boards role, it could be worked out how the community concepts in prevention could fit in and what role the Head of Public Health’s department could play. She added there only seemed to be talk of secondary prevention but, she thought it might be necessary to think about tertiary prevention. The Vice-Chairman stated the Borough was trying to help by building Cycle Paths among other things and that could be extended to include travel plans for employees to encourage other means of traveling other than cars. Catherine Mullins confirmed she would send the link for the Joint Health and Wellbeing Strategy to Members. It was noted the CAB wanted to see tackling poverty as part of the remit of the Community Partnerships Board; people were using Foodbanks more and more and it was a priority to help people manage their money better. Catherine Mullins confirmed the Health and Wellbeing Board had produced a Healthy Budget Meals menu which helped previously and that could be done again. The Head of Public Health stated when people were dealing with lack of money; they would not be interested in healthy eating or stopping smoking. Once issues such as food, money and shelter are no longer present, then people were more focused on giving up smoking and healthy living. A good idea would be to have CAB advisors set up in pockets of the community to help tackle issues of poverty.

Big Society – Community Engagement
The Community & Business Partnerships Manager gave an update on action in community engagement. A meeting had been held and members of the Police had also attended to look into what activity took place around resident engagement and also the scope on how to work together. From that meeting:
    A range of priorities were identified.
    Discovered the hardest to reach groups were those at work and of working age.
    The Fire Service had an outreach vehicle which other groups could use.
    Suggested an online survey be completed to find out how partners engaged with residents.
    Produce a calendar for partners to link up with the opportunity to use facilities and staff so if partners were not able to pool budgets, they could pool resources instead.

David Knowles-Leak suggested it be promoted that employers buy from local businesses to help bolster the local economy which would have a knock-on effect on what can be done in the local community. Andrew Elkington, Head of Policy & Performance stated there was possibly enormous intrinsic value in community engagement but it was important to be clear on what the objective of the activity was. Unless what was trying to be achieved was defined, it was easy to get wrapped up in the process. He suggested for the next meeting, the Community & Business Partnerships Manager defined what good looked like and what the activities around community engagement were trying to achieve.

Impact of Welfare Reforms on Local Partners
The Partnership Co-ordinator stated the first meeting of the External Stakeholder Group had been well attended by Housing Associations and the Citizens Advice Bureau. It was striking to discover the level of demand on the support available and the actual numbers of those experiencing hardship:
    A lot of social housing tenants were experiencing hardship due to the way the benefits had been cut.
    Support in kind i.e. food parcels or food vouchers – Housing Associations reporting that people who did not have transport were unable to access that support in kind.
    The meeting was looking at the framework for local welfare provision and had looked at what data was available in terms of the level of rent arrears or the volume of Foodbank users.
    One problem was that Foodbanks were easier to access in Maidenhead than they were in Windsor.
    Underspend of crisis funding going to the CAB through the Grants Panel.
    It was felt by the External Stakeholders Group that this item was worth bringing back to a future meeting to look at again.
The Head of Policy & Performance commented that the key issue was with metrics. If the item was being brought back to the Board, metrics were needed to know what exactly was going on.

Next Meeting

The Chairman and Vice-Chairman agreed that the Community Partnership Board would meet every four months with the next meetings in July and again in November 2014.