Rotherham
Together
Partnership Plan
2016/17
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Introduction
This is the first annual plan of Rotherham
Together Partnership (RTP), the borough’s
new strategic partnership body. RTP
comprises representatives from various
local organisations working together on
a range of shared priorities to improve
the economic and social wellbeing of the
borough.
The plan draws heavily on Views from
Rotherham, an extensive consultation
programme carried out in summer 2015,
through which hundreds of local people were
able to share their vision for the borough’s
future via a series of roadshows and an online
survey.
Inevitably, the consultation responses covered
a multitude of issues, hopes and aspirations,
but a number of themes resonated. People
wanted to address Rotherham’s poor
reputation and restore pride in the borough;
they wanted to harness our culture of
friendliness and warmth to engender a
stronger sense of community spirit; and they
wanted clean and safe places for themselves
and their families to enjoy.
Another overarching theme for partners is to
take forward the concept of a child-centred
borough “where young people are supported
by their families and community, and are
protected from harm”. The plan will help to
make this a reality by setting out a range of
actions and activities that involve and benefit
children, young people and their families.
These themes are central to our 2016/17
partnership plan and inform the initiatives we
intend to deliver over the next twelve months,
as set out in more detail below.
Whilst focusing on delivering our annual
plan, RTP will also use the next few months
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to discuss the development of a longer term
vision and strategy. The themes will remain
central, but partners will be taking a more
strategic look at how they can best use their
collective resources to deliver meaningful,
sustainable change in the borough.
This ongoing discussion will not happen
in isolation. We will continue to engage
and involve local people and communities
at every stage and are planning another
consultation programme in the summer of
2016. This is part of a shift in engagement
and communications that will underpin our
strategy, recognising that people are likely to
engage only when they are aware of what
is happening and feel that they are able to
contribute and influence.
We realise that Rotherham Together
Partnership will only be effective and our
plans and strategies will only have an impact
if we work in genuine partnership with the
communities of Rotherham.
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Rotherham
today
Rotherham is a borough covering 110
square miles with a population of 260,100
who mostly live in urban areas, though
72% of the area is green belt. Rotherham
has 50,000 children aged 0-15 and 27,600
young people aged 16-24. The population
is ageing, with 64,100 people aged over
60, of whom 21,600 are aged over 75 and
5,800 over 85. An additional 1,000 people
aged over 85 are expected by 2020; a 17%
increase.
Rotherham has a diverse community which
includes 20,000 people from minority ethnic
groups (8.1%), the largest communities being
Pakistani/Kashmiri and Slovak/Czech Roma.
The borough is also made up of many towns,
villages and suburbs which form a wide range
of geographic communities.
According to the 2015 national index of
multiple deprivation (IMD), Rotherham is
placed within the top 16% most deprived
places in the country and our relative position
has changed little since 2010. Rotherham’s
main challenges are people out of work, low
levels of qualification and ill health. Whilst
deprivation has reduced in many parts of
Rotherham, it has increased and become more
concentrated in the most deprived areas.
Rotherham has a vibrant voluntary and
community sector, comprising almost 1,400
organisations with 3,600 staff and an
estimated 49,000 volunteer roles.
Rotherham lost 14,000 jobs between 2007
and 2012 but the situation is improving. The
Advanced Manufacturing Park at Waverley is
leading new business growth with 700 jobs
already created in high technology enterprises.
Of the 5,710 VAT registered businesses in
Rotherham, 975 started up in 2013.
Many of the borough’s larger employers
are public sector bodies, though current and
projected future job growth is predominantly
in the private sector.
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Rotherham
in the future
We know one of the great things about
Rotherham is the people, as indicated by
the impressive volunteer numbers above.
When we asked, in Views from Rotherham,
what people thought about the borough,
the most universally liked feature was
the friendly, honest people and good
“community spirit”.
We will harness this positive aspect of
Rotherham, focusing on our strengths - what
people and places can offer rather than
what they need - to create a place where
everyone feels connected and able to actively
participate in their community for the benefit
of themselves and others. We might describe
this as neighbourliness, but the value of such
networks where people cooperate and do
things for each other is sometimes referred to
as “social capital” or “community assets”.
Research has shown that higher levels of social
capital are associated with better health,
higher educational achievement, better
employment and lower crime rates.
In other words, those with extensive networks
are more likely to be ‘housed, healthy, hired
and happy’, and this is what we want to
achieve; better connected communities, with
people interacting more and generating a
greater sense of community spirit.
Our longer term strategy will look more
closely at what partners need to do to
reshape services so that they are focused
around people and communities, rather than
organisational silos. Scarce resources will need
to be targeted more effectively to support
individuals, groups and places that are less
resilient or face specific problems.
The complex problems faced in some families
or communities often result in equally complex
responses from different agencies, leading to
duplication of effort and frustration on the
part of those we are trying to help.
This is not always easy to address, but we are
committed to doing so, initially by adapting
good practice from integrated programmes
such as families for change (Rotherham’s
“troubled families” scheme).
We will also ensure we grasp opportunities
presented by the devolution of powers and
funding from central government, working
with partners across South Yorkshire and
neighbouring areas to ensure local people
benefit from a growing economy.
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Our themes
Theme 1: bringing people
together
Following the Jay report into historical child
sexual exploitation, Rotherham was targeted
for protests and marches by far-right groups,
with 14 taking place between September 2014
and November 2015.
These marches stirred up community tensions,
impacted upon local businesses and generally
damaged the town’s morale.
Immigration and “ethnic segregation” were
seen as major issues in Views from Rotherham,
with many people expressing strong negative
feelings about immigration generally. On the
other hand, the need to improve integration
was also a recurring theme. Some people
sought solutions such as more English language
classes and events to bring people from
different communities together.
Attendees from BME (black and minority
ethnic) communities outlined a wide range
of problems they and their families faced,
including bullying at school and feeling scared
and isolated.
Of course this is not just about ethnicity. A
fundamental element of bringing communities
together is tackling loneliness and isolation.
Though not an exclusively age-related issue,
older people are especially vulnerable to
feelings of isolation as a result of the loss
of friends and family or limited mobility or
income that comes with age.
Social isolation and loneliness are associated
with mental health problems and can result in
increased use of emergency healthcare and
earlier admission to residential care.
In Rotherham, over 10,000 people aged over
75 live alone, half of all people in this age
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group. Based on the results of a national
survey, loneliness is likely to affect around
4,000 older people in the borough every day.
Key action for 2016/17:
Let’s Get Rotherham
Talking
This is a campaign to promote community
spirit where people are encouraged to get
to know their neighbour by joining them for
a drink and chat under the banner of ‘Let’s
Get Rotherham Talking’. We will launch the
campaign in June and it will culminate in an
event in the town centre on Yorkshire Day
(1st August). A programme of activities will
then be put together to run until the end of
the year. It is important that we consider
activities taking place in the winter months
when people are more likely to feel isolated.
Theme 2: opportunity
and equality
At an individual, community and borough level
we want to feel that Rotherham is moving
in the right direction; that opportunities are
being created; and – critically – that everyone
is able to benefit.
The borough’s new economic growth plan sets
out ambitious targets to deliver 10,000 new
private sector jobs by 2025 and 750 additional
businesses by 2020. However, as the plan
points out, there are significant challenges
in ensuring that this growth translates to
“success” for all of Rotherham’s communities.
The latest government deprivation data
– the 2015 index of multiple deprivation
(IMD) – shows that the borough still has
pockets of severe disadvantage, particularly
in central Rotherham around the town centre
(i.e. Eastwood, Ferham, Canklow and East
Herringthorpe).
Although Rotherham’s overall IMD ranking
has changed little since 2010 – it has moved
from 53rd to 52nd most deprived district in
England – the “local concentration” measure
reveals that deprivation in the poorest 10%
of the borough has increased significantly.
According to IMD 2015, Rotherham has
50,400 residents (19.5%) living in areas within
the most deprived 10% of England. This figure
has grown from 30,400 in 2007 and 44,170 in
2010.
In terms of child poverty, figures for 2013 (the
most recent published by government) show
that just over one fifth of Rotherham children
live in a low income family. Again, the picture
looks worse when we look at the breakdown
within the borough. Across the ten most
deprived areas, 50% of children are classed as
living in poverty, compared to just 3.8% in the
ten least deprived areas. Children in the most
deprived areas are also five times more likely
to be classed as a “child in need” of social care
services.
Addressing this is critical if Rotherham is to
truly become a child-centred borough. There
is significant research that indicates the
importance of children getting “a good start”
in order to have the best chance of having
positive outcomes in education, employment,
health and other important areas of life.
Of course, inequalities are not only
geographical. Average full-time earnings for
women in Rotherham are 66.5% of men’s,
compared to 82.5% of men’s nationally. The
gap in employment rate between women and
men in Rotherham is 12.6%, compared to
10.4% nationally.
Rotherham also has high rates of disability,
with 8.5% of the population claiming
disability living allowance or personal
independence payments compared with 5.4%
nationally (as at August 2015).
Key action for 2016/17:
Let’s Get Rotherham
Working
This initiative is an “ask” of local businesses
to commit to helping local people prepare
for and progress in work, for example by:
becoming a schools enterprise advisor,
exhibiting at a jobs and careers event, taking
on a school work experience placement or a
university/college intern, providing industry
talks or visits to schools and colleges, taking
on an apprentice or trainee, or undertaking
new in-work training.
Theme 3: welcoming
places
This theme is about communities in the
physical sense - places that facilitate the
connected communities we have described.
This might be street layouts and green spaces
that encourage people to go outside, exercise
and play; facilities for activities, meetings and
discussion; and, importantly, places in which
people feel that they and their families are
safe and secure.
In Views from Rotherham, litter and flytipping were identified as major problems
across the borough and “tidy with clean streets
and well-maintained parks and green spaces”
emerged as the number one priority in the
consultation that took place at Rotherham
Show in September 2015.
Many respondees also reported feeling unsafe
or generally not welcome, particularly in parts
of the town centre. This echoed the results
of the Rotherham “voice of the child” lifestyle
survey 2015, conducted with year 7 and year
10 secondary school pupils, in which only
16% reported feeling safe in the town centre,
37% safe in their community and 43% when
travelling to and from school (although these
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had increased from 2014 when the results
were 10%, 33% and 27% respectively).
Increasingly, many local organisations are
exploring a more community or “locality”
based approach to some aspects of their
service delivery. This includes family support
services in the council’s “Early Help” locality
teams, community-based models of health
care, and local policing teams. This theme will
look at how these and other local services can
dovetail effectively, though it is an aspect we
will consider in more depth as part of the longterm strategy.
The other dimension to “welcoming places”
is considering Rotherham as a whole and
picking up on people’s concerns about our
poor reputation and the need to restore pride
in the borough. To start to address this, our
revamped partnership communications will
look at ways of highlighting good news stories
and generally establishing a more positive
image for the town.
Key action for 2016/17:
Let’s Get Rotherham
Cleaning
This would build on the national ‘Clean
for the Queen’ campaign launched by
Country Life magazine in partnership with
Keep Britain Tidy. The aim of the national
campaign is to rally volunteers across the
country to clean up their local areas and
will include a special clean-up weekend on
March 4-6. In Rotherham, Streetpride - the
council’s cleansing team - will kick start
activity by ‘super blitzing’ three areas of the
borough. Streetpride will support groups,
businesses and individuals to get involved in
cleaning up their local area and there will be
a particular focus on the town centre.
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Supporting
theme boards
As you can see in the diagram on page
8, Rotherham Together Partnership is
supported by a number of theme boards,
each with their own priorities and
strategies. These are: Safer Rotherham
Partnership, Rotherham Health and
Wellbeing Board, the Business Growth
Board and the Children and Young People’s
Partnership.
In pursuing their priorities, the theme boards
will contribute to this plan and the longer
term strategy, quite directly in some cases,
and we will capture this in our monitoring
and governance arrangements (see section
below). Critically though, it will work the other
way too. By promoting more connected, equal
and welcoming communities through the
partnership plan, we will help to create the
conditions in which people thrive, children
develop well and everyone feels safer, healthier
and happier.
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Monitoring and
governance
As per the diagram on page 8, Rotherham
Together Partnership has overall
responsibility for the plan’s delivery.
It will receive quarterly progress reports,
highlighting specific achievements and
identifying any obstacles.
Specific named organisations will be
responsible for delivering each action or
activity in the plan and they will decide
whether further task groups need to be
established to help with planning and delivery.
In some cases, particular actions or strands
of activity may be delegated to the theme
boards, though again progress will be reported
to RTP.
The RTP team, based within Rotherham
Council, will support all aspects of the plan’s
delivery.
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Communications
and contacts
We are committed to keeping people
regularly informed about progress in
delivering the plan and the general work of
the partnership. There will be an electronic
newsletter, a partnership website and a
social media presence.
On an annual basis we will carry out a full
review, looking not only at what we have done,
but also how we have done it and whether our
approach needs to change. This will involve
public consultation, with the opportunity to
contribute ideas to the forthcoming year’s
annual plan.
The RTP team should be the first point of call
for any queries relating to the plan or the wider
work of the partnership:
Telephone: 01709 822793
Email: kellie.rodgers@rotherham.gov.uk
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Rotherham Together
Partnership Structure
Wider engagement with Rotherham communities
Through events, roadshows, surveys, annual review, newsletters, website, social media etc.
• Chairs and leaders of strategic organisations and representative networks in Rotherham
• Providing strategic leadership and ensuring partnership working
for the benefit of Rotherham citizens and businesses
• Agreeing and implementing Rotherham Community Strategy and annual delivery plans
Chief Executive Officer Group – Operational support to the partnership
Safer
Rotherham
Partnership
New Safer
Rotherham Strategy
(in development)
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Health and
Wellbeing Board
Health & Wellbeing
Strategy 2015-18
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Children &
Young People’s
Partnership
Rotherham
Business
Growth Board
New Children and
Young People’s Plan
(in development)
Rotherham Economic
Growth Plan 2015–25
REF: 74092/2016 – Design and produced by RMBC Design Studio Tel 01709 823583
Rotherham Together Partnership