To elect a new Chairman and Vice Chairman of the Group for the new municipal year.

Councillor Samantha Rayner proposed that Paul Samuels was elected Chairman of the One Borough Group. This was seconded by Karnail Pannu.

RESOLVED UNANIMOUSLY: That Paul Samuels was elected as Chairman of the One Borough Group for the 2022/23 municipal year.

Karnail Pannu proposed that Councillor Samantha Rayner was elected as Vice Chairman of the One Borough Group. This was seconded by Paul Samuels.

RESOLVED UNANIMOUSLY: That Councillor Samantha Rayner was elected as Vice Chairman of the One Borough Group for the 2022/23 municipal year.

To receive any apologies for absence.

Apologies for absence were received from Philip Reynolds, Nicola Davidson, Valerie Pike, Andy Saunders, Maria Evans, David Scott, David Bonney, Josephine Crabb, Ila Gangotra, Tracy Muschamp and Barbara Grossman.

To receive any declarations of interest.

There were no declarations of interest received.

To consider the minutes of the meeting held on 15^th March 2022.

RESOLVED UNANIMOUSLY: That the minutes of the meeting held on 15^th March 2022 were approved as a true and accurate record.

To hear about how the RBWM Corporate Plan can fit in with the objectives of the One Borough Group and to understand what schemes are available to help with the cost of living crisis.

Rebecca Hatch, Head of Strategy, explained that the Corporate Plan had been agreed by Full Council in November 2021 and set out the council’s overarching strategy for the next five years. The Corporate Plan focused on changes that could be delivered in the borough, with a number of opportunities and challenges set by officers. The council could only achieve its targets by working in partnership with the communities that it looked to support. Rebecca Hatch gave a brief overview of what the plan included. All of the goals were set out and could be tracked on the Citizens Portal which showed the progress being made, this had been launched in April 2022. There were six ways of working which guided the delivery of the plan:

·         Empowered and enabled individuals, communities and businesses to maximise their potential.

·         Invested in prevention and intervene early to address problems before they escalated.

·         Shape the council’s service delivery around the communities diverse needs and put customers at the heart of RBWM.

·         Make the most effective use of resources and delivering the best value for money.

·         Promote awareness of a sustainable and biodiverse environment across all of the council’s decision making.

·         Promote health and wellbeing and focus on reducing inequalities across all areas.

Rebecca Hatch said that the council could be effective when it worked in partnership with the voluntary and community sector. Reducing inequalities in the community was a two-stage approach. The first stage was about understanding the issues and developing an evidence base. The second stage was about developing a shared approach to reducing inequalities. The data to inform the evidence base would come from data analysis, frontline engagement and community engagement. Rebecca Hatch encouraged the One Borough Group to get involved with this project.

Councillor Price had noted that in the recent corporate peer review, there had been suggestions made about how the council should communicate with the local community. She asked if these recommendations were part of this work.

Rebecca Hatch said that the council was in the process of setting out a new engagement framework which would provide a consistent approach to interacting with communities. It was hoped that the inequalities project would be seen as an exemplar of good practise.

Councillor Price asked for the planned timeframe of the project and when each stage would be completed.

Rebecca Hatch confirmed that it was anticipated that phase 1 would be completed in November 2022, so that it could feed into the refresh of the Corporate Plan. Phase 2 would run from November until around April 2023.

To understand how the charity has been helping residents with the rise in the cost of living.

Rebecca Mistry said that the Baby Bank helped families with essentials. The charity was doing a lot of signposting for those that needed to access community fridges and also for those that needed help to pay their bills. There were a number of support services available, the Baby Bank felt that a number of people were overwhelmed by the situation that they were in and many had tried to ignore it. At the start of the year, the Baby Bank had received 500 new blankets and these had been given out to residents who needed them. The Baby Bank would be relocating shortly and they hoped to be able to offer a pop up shop where residents could pick up things like school uniforms.

Councillor Price congratulated Rebecca Mistry for recently receiving a British Empire Medal. She supported the idea that many people needed help with budgeting and signposting to where they could get information relevant to their situation.

To hear from the Library and Resident Contact Service.

Avril Heaney, Team Leader for Library and Resident Services, said that there was a golden thread between a number of the services that the libraries could provide and the Corporate Plan. Guidance and help was being provided to residents who needed it with the energy efficiency payment, some residents did not have an email account and this was something that the service could help with. Books and tablets were available for loan, with all reservations and requests being free of charge. There were also a number of online resources available, for example a guide on how to access universal credit and resources on career development. All library staff were trained in how to signpost effectively and show residents how they could access the resources they required. On volunteering, there were opportunities to support those up to the age of 14 and there was currently a focus on the summer reading challenge.

Councillor Price commented on the important role that libraries played in the community. Residents had somewhere to go to gain support and help, she felt that library hours should not be cut and should instead be increased.

Elaine Keating said that the RBWM Youth Council had someone from the library service attend one of their recent meetings. They found the presentation very useful in knowing what services were available. Elaine Keating added that they would be launching a survey shortly which would consider things like the library opening hours.

The Chairman asked if the survey was available to view.

Elaine Keating said it would be launching shortly, she could potentially bring the findings of the survey to a future meeting of the One Borough Group.

Sarah Scott asked if there was a long wait list for the tablets.

Avril Heaney said that there was not a long wait list currently.

To hear about the event which will be taking place on 26^th June 2022.

Andrew Douglass informed the Group that sadly the Parallel Windsor event scheduled for the end of June had been cancelled due to the threat of the planned rail strikes. After the strikes were announced, around 38% of ticketholders for the event decided to cancel their tickets, this had therefore raised the commercial and financial risk of the event. Organisers had been on BBC Radio Berkshire to discuss the cancellation and the decision making. Andrew Douglass had received a significant number of positive messages and support in light of the cancellation, there were hopes that the event could go ahead without issue next year.

To receive an update on local NHS services.

Mark Beeley, Democratic Services Officer, delivered the verbal update on behalf of Sabahat Hassan as she had technical issues joining the meeting.

Frimley Park NHS Foundation Trust had introduced a new electronic patient record system which meant they would be able to further embrace and deliver the vision to be a leader in health and wellbeing and delivering exceptional services for the local community. As this was a new system, staff could take longer to complete some of the administrative functions over the next few weeks. Steps would be taken to minimise the impact.

Primary care and the hospital trust were busy, residents were advised to continue to use the NHS website, NHS 111 online, pharmacy and self-care as appropriate.

The NHS would be launching engagement sessions across RBWM shortly to hear from people about accessing health services. This would begin over the next couple of months and would link in with the RBWM engagement group which was currently led by Jesal Dhokia.

The update concluded with Sabahat Hassan confirming that it would be her last meeting as she moved to a different part of the NHS, but work would be done to assign a new colleague to attend the One Borough Group in future.

To receive updates from members of the group.

Ollie Cassells set out the ‘Here to Help’ campaign that was being run by RBWM to help residents with the cost of living. Those that were already on low incomes and those with higher proportions of children were among the more likely to be affected. There were also a number of people who were ‘just about managing’ and had no further capacity to absorb the greater cost to live. There were three overarching objectives of the campaign:

·         Mitigate the impact of the rising cost of living for residents, especially those in the groups most affected.

·         Build the financial resilience of residents.

·         Preventing residents from reaching the point of crisis.

The approach was a collaborative, multi-service approach. A summary paper of the cost of living increases had been created, along with a cost of living group to ensure that the collaborative approach was maintained. The ‘Here to Help’ communications campaign had been launched to compliment the website for the campaign and World Cafés had been organised which would be focused on cost of living issues.

David Wiles, Communications Team Leader, said that the council aimed to raise awareness of the support available to those that needed it. There was an emphasis that those that were struggling should take action and get in touch so that help could be given. The communications campaign had started at the beginning of May 2022 and would run until the end of June. A number of digital and non-digital materials were available as part of the campaign, while there were a number of graphics which had been created for the council’s social media channels. There had been good engagement with the campaign across social media, particularly on Facebook.

Danielle Lane said that Abri Housing ran a job support club every Wednesday from 10am to 12pm. The club had been very busy and it had been useful to help residents to find jobs.

Usha Parmar said that Maidenhead Fire Station would be holding an open day on Sunday 19^th June.

Councillor Bond said that it was good that the public were being encouraged to deal with the cost of living crisis sooner rather than later. There was an issue with those residents who had a private landlord, particularly after a long period where evictions were not possible during the pandemic.

Dates of future meetings are as follows (all 11am):

·         Tuesday 13^th September 2022

·         Tuesday 6^th December 2022

The Chairman suggested that one of the remaining meetings in 2022 could take place in person, where a format like World Café could be used.

Councillor Price suggested that the December meeting could be in person, with the remit of what would be discussed circulated in advance of the meeting.

It was agreed by the Group that this was a sensible suggestion.

The next meeting of the Group was scheduled to be Tuesday 13^th September 2022, starting at 11am.