Agenda Item 12a
BOARD
PEOPLE, PLACES AND PROSPERITY EXECUTIVES
UPDATE (15 MARCH 2010 MEETING)
Monday, 21 June 2010
1
Purpose of the Report
1.1
To provide the Walsall Partnership Board with an update regarding progress
with the People, Places and Prosperity Executives.
2
Recommendations
2.1
Walsall Partnership Board is recommended to:
i)
Note the progress made regarding the Joint Executive and the People,
Place and Prosperity Breakout Executives, as set out in section 3.3
3
People, Places and Prosperity Meeting Overview – 15 March 2010
3.1
Due to the cross-cutting nature of some agenda items the first part of the
meeting is conducted collaboratively, with members of each of the People,
Places and Prosperity executives, followed by a further breakout session
where the People, Places and Prosperity executives discuss items specific to
their thematic area.
3.2
A summary of the Joint Executive is provided at appendix 1.
3.3
The Walsall Partnership Board is requested to note the progress made in
sections 3 – 5, and attached at appendix 1.
4
Joint Executive Discussion - Local Area Agreement (LAA) Report
4.1
Tim Ferguson (TF) proposed a change in approach to performance managing
the LAA, in order to increase levels of accountability and improve
performance in order to achieve the targets.
TF gave an update on progress regarding the four economic targets which are
open for re-negotiation for year 3 of the current LAA. Negotiations were
concluded on 12 March 2010.
Agreement has been reached with
Government Office in relation to the Worklessness and Child Poverty targets,
to keep an increase in gap between performance and the agreed target to a
minimum – this in light of the current economic situation and in particular,
Walsall being more severely affected compared to other areas.
Agenda Item 12a
Nick Alamanos circulated a series of slides, indicating (using pie charts) the
number of ‘high risk’ LAA targets, direction of travel of performance and the
likelihood of Walsall receiving any Reward Grant, based on current
performance. Reward Grant is awarded where there has been 60%
achievement, Walsall is currently at 55%.
The Joint Executive members acknowledged the seriousness of this situation
and the need for this to be addressed collectively. It was noted that a number
of ‘high risk’ targets are based on the Place Survey where there is a lack of
other data to indicate progress.
5
People, Places and Prosperity Breakout Executives
5.1
Within the breakout, Executive members looked at the Local Area Agreement
Report produced by Nick Alamanos (Walsall Partnership) in particular ‘Red’
Rated Targets
The three Executive groups provided an opportunity for discussion on redrated performance targets.
5.2
Executive members discussed further One Page Strategies and feedback
received from workshops held at the Walsall Partnership Consultation Event
on 8 February 2010.
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People Executive – Anti-Social Behaviour
Places Executive – Neighbourhood Management Model
Prosperity Executive – Raising Aspirations for Young People
6
Equalities Impact Assessment
6.1
The three Executive groups provided an opportunity for discussion on the
cross-cutting agenda and strategies in development. The Sustainable
Communities Act is focused on empowering local people to engage with
public service providers more effectively.
The Local Neighbourhood
Partnership consultation outcome will provide a clear framework for
engagement / consultation for the council and partners with their local
communities.
Contact Officer:
Tina Griffiths
Support Assistant
 (01922) 653502
 griffithstina@walsall.gov.uk
Page 2 of 2
Agenda Item 12a
Joint Executive Summary – 15 March 2010
Report
Declarations of Interest
Decision
None
Draft Minutes of Previous
Meeting
Draft minutes were AGREED as an accurate record for the
Joint Executive and the Breakout Executives of the People,
Places and Prosperity groups.
Strategic Communications Group – The Executive noted that
the Chair of this Group is now Amarjit Basi, Walsall College.
(The previous Chair was Jo Byrne, West Midlands Police).
One Page Strategies – Work being undertaken with Habanero
(Consultants) and recruitment of Project Manager.
Local Improvement Plan (LIP) – Event held at The Village
Hotel in February 2010.
Tim Ferguson (TF) gave an update on progress regarding the
four economic targets which are open for re-negotiation for
year 3 of the current LAA.
Nick Alamanos (NA) circulated a series of slides, indicating
(using pie charts) the number of ‘high risk’ LAA targets,
direction of travel of performance and the likelihood of Walsall
receiving any Reward Grant, based on current performance.
Reward Grant is awarded where there has been 60%
achievement, Walsall is currently at 55%.
The Conversation with a Purpose survey was raised as a
source of data – the analysis of this is underway and the
outcomes will provide the new Area Partnerships with
identified priorities. (TF referred to the ‘Scouting Group’ which
has been established as part of the Area Partnership
Implementation Group, who are looking at all partner data
sources to identify area priorities and, where appropriate,
testing this data with local people. This data will also test the
validity of the Sustainable Community Strategy [SCS]).
There was agreement that the Target Action Plans (TAP)
need to be refreshed and TAP leads identified and take
responsibility for ensuring delivery.
The Joint Executive members ACKNOWLEDGED the
seriousness of this situation and the need for this to be
addressed collectively. It was NOTED that a number of ‘high
risk’ targets are based on the Place Survey where there is a
lack of other data to indicate progress.
Clive Wright (CW) informed the Executive that the model was
approved by Council on 28 January 2010 – both Kevin Bullas
and Gary Fulford (GF) were in attendance to present the
model to Elected Members.
A Communications Action Plan is being developed to inform
partners and communities of the change from Local
Neighbourhood Partnerships (LNP) to Area Partnerships (AP)
and the opportunities to become involved.
The Implementation Group continues to meet. Habanero
(Consultants) are facilitating the Group, which will include
identifying a ‘pilot’ area to raise perception levels of residents
of public services.
The Implementation Group will be undertaking an intensive
‘Accelerator Week’ to drill down in to issues and identify
Matters Arising from the
Minutes
Local Area Agreement
Report
Neighbourhood
Management Update
Agenda Item 12a
Evaluation of Target
Action Plans
possible solutions. Clive expressed this thanks to partners for
their support of this process to ensure the new model is
robustly implemented.
Area Managers / Support Officers – Internal recruitment within
the Council, Walsall Housing Group and NHS Walsall is
underway, with a second round “Partner Panel” interviews
being held on 26 March 2010. There will be an opportunity for
partners to meet candidates between 12.30 and 2.00 p.m., on
the 26th, at The Crossing. Following on from the internal
recruitment, if vacancies remain, an external recruitment
process will be undertaken.
Project Manager – Internal recruitment within Walsall Council
is underway. Post is available until 31 December 2010.
Habanero are also undertaking work within the Council to look
at its overall ‘operating system’, particularly in light of
challenging future budgets. NHS Walsall have engaged
Deloitte’s to undertake a similar review.
The Joint Executive members NOTED the update provided
and ACKNOWLEDGED the need to manage expectations of
the new model on what can and cannot be delivered.
The Evaluation Report was presented to the group, which
highlighted areas to develop the TAP process. These relate
to earlier discussions regarding performance.
Denise McLellan suggested developing a partner-wide
planning model, to ensure awareness of timescales for
partners to undertake planning and that the TAP process fits
strategically with this. It was agreed that a mapping exercise
be undertake to start to identify timescales. Agreed for
Executive Chairs to meet to discuss this further, including
Jamie Morris.
Prioritisation of TAP reviews needs to be based on those ‘high
risk’ targets identified earlier.
Tim Ferguson informed the Executive of a workshop which is
being arranged for April / May, with partners, to begin to look
at strategic outcomes. A further workshop will be held with
Elected Members following the local election.
The Joint Executive members:

Any Other Business
NOTED the Evaluation Report and the
recommendations to improve the Target Action
Plan process.
 NOTED that Walsall Partnership Board requested
that the People, Places and Prosperity Executive
take forward the recommendations.
There were no items of Any Other Business.
Correspondence;
Walsall Partnership Board Chairs Report
The Executive NOTED and ENDORSED the decisions /
actions taken by Walsall Partnership Board.
Working Neighbourhoods Fund Audit
Jo Lowndes (JL) briefed the Executive members on the recent
Agenda Item 12a
Audit undertaken on the governance and procedure
arrangements in place in relation to WNF. A number of areas
of good practice were identified.
A total of eight
recommendations were made to improve existing
arrangements. The audit opinion was to give a ‘borderline
significant reassurance’, which highlights the hard work
undertaken within the Support Team to ensure lessons have
been learnt from previous funding stream processes. JL
added that the Partnership for Walsall Enterprise and
Regeneration (PoWER) Pillar Executive Group (PEG) are
monitoring the implementation of the recommendations.
The Executives NOTED the findings and recommendations of
the Working Neighbourhoods Fund 2009 / 10 audit.
People, Places, Prosperity Breakout sessions
Report
Minutes of Previous
meeting
Decision
People: Minutes of the previous meeting were agreed as an
accurate record. There were no matters arising.
Places: Minutes of the previous meeting were agreed as an
accurate record. There was a discussion about the
Neighbourhood Management Model, which will become a ‘One
Pages Strategy’. Clive Wright (CW) commented that the
current model is due to change with some consultants from
Habanero recruited in to help, by implementing a six-stage
process.
Local Area Agreement
Performance Report
Prosperity: Minutes of the previous meeting were agreed as
an accurate record. There were no matters arising.
People: Nick Alamanos (NA) provided details in relation to
Perception Survey indicators considered as ‘high risk’. There
is currently, insufficient data available to develop proxy
measures to gauge where we are at the moment. The
Stronger Partnership is the thematic group overseeing the
Target Action Plans (TAP), which are linked to the Survey.
Gary Stevens (GS) suggesting contacting other Black Country
Local Authorities to identify what their issues are and how they
are dealing with them. Discussions are also taking place at the
Strategic Communications Group.
The group referred to the work being undertaken by the
‘Scouting Group’, which will assist in aggregating data at Area
Partnership level and allow targeted communication.
Discussion on “All Age All Cause Mortality” target, which has
been a long-standing issue within the Borough. There are a
number of interventions in place, but the target remains static –
similar situation with “Teenage Conceptions” target.
The “Domestic Violence (Children’s Social Care)” target will
move to ‘high risk’ based on current data and different
collection methods.
NI 5 TAP has been refreshed. NI 1 and 4 will be reviewed as
the Area Partnership model develops.
NI 7 – Ian Willetts (IW) informed the group of the need for
Agenda Item 12a
support to refresh this TAP, particularly regarding those issues
important to the Sector, e.g., resourcing, commissioning,
sustainability – further discussion will take place in the
Stronger Partnership.
Perceptions Survey due September 2010 – Strategic
Communications Group will assist with this. Nick gave details
of how the Survey is undertaken – administered through MORI.
Need to give messages at different levels.
The Area
Partnership model will assist with this, but timing of
implementation may not have much impact on this Survey.
Places: NA informed members that the scorecard highlighted
there were 5 Green, 2 Red and 1 Grey-rated indicators
relevant to the panel.
The group were informed that a risk rating had been attributed
to each indicator (based on the likelihood of achievement at
2011) with those outlined as ‘high’ being listed as priorities for
the Executive.
These were:



NI 186 – Per capita CO2 emissions in the local area
NI 187 – Tackling fuel poverty
NI 141 – Number of vulnerable people achieving
independent lining
A priority sheet was handed to the group outlining the
current/most recent outturn for those indicators rated high risk,
along with a detailed definition and direction of travel.
Members were also informed of the date of final outturn,
enabling them to have a clear understanding of the timescales
involved in helping to address any potential problems.
NI186 & NI188 Climate Change
Carole Edmondson (CE) was due to present to the group but
unfortunately was unable to attend the meeting due to illness.
CW suggested that CE may need the council’s adaptations to
help deal with NI188 (Climate Change) because when the
weather is bad the roads will still need to be gritted. There is
also an effect on vegetable planting and watering and the
cutting of the grass, especially in the long hot summers. All of
these are affected by climate change.
There was an issue raised within the group that no matter what
the weather, hot or cold there will still be damage caused to the
roads and power supplies. The group needs to capture what
the council and the Places Executive are doing and not what
needs to be done i.e. floodplains in Walsall, local ice flooding,
impact on transport risks. Is this happening environmentally
through climate change?
The Executive group also commented on CE’s post moving
forward should the climate change funding stop. The council
should have sufficient resources available to accommodate the
issues raised on climate change to make reductions on the
Agenda Item 12a
impact it has on the environment.
There are many things that as a group/ organisation they need
to look into and these are:




What are the key things that are happening?
How are we adapting to these?
What should we minimally be doing to bench-mark
climate change?
How are we partnering with other authorities
resources? Managers to pass down and share
experiences, which will then report into the Board.
There was a suggestion made by the members of the group
potentially to merge this issue with other indicators. Other
issues were then raised by the group regarding weather
changes, as there is more likely to be road accidents in the
winter/cold and in the summer there will be more kids hanging
around till later at night, both these issues fall into the crime
indictors.
CW commented that the community need to challenge the
council with regards to the climate change issues that we have
in Walsall. For example Councillor Rachel Walker (former
portfolio-holder) challenged the council with the recycling issue
– she had the participation from other authorities to make this
happen.
Both National indicators 188 (Climate Change) and 186 (CO2
Emissions) are local and national targets. These indicators are
based on risk.
Prosperity: Members of the group were issued with the
revised LAA report collated by NA (Walsall Partnership) and
the content was discussed.
Three priorities were highlighted as Red Rated:

NI 116: Proportion of Children in Poverty

NI 110: Young People’s Participation in Positive
Activities

NI 152: Working age people on out of work benefits
Issues over the way young people interpret the national survey
questionnaire were highlighted. Walsall is at the lowest of its
statistical neighbours (64.7%) for ‘Children in Year 10
Participating in Positive Activities’ along the England average
(65.8%).
Denise McLellan (DM) confirmed that the group are required to
address the Red Rated Indicators and to ensure that corrective
action is happening. She confirmed that Kirsten Moon (KM)
would start by presenting to the group at the next meeting on
NI 116 – Proportion of Children in Poverty.
Kim Rowlands (Advantage WM) explained to the group that
some key schemes were slow to get off the ground in regards
Agenda Item 12a
Total Place - One Page
Strategy
to Worklessness and other members of the group discussed
how challenging it had also been.
Andrew Rumble (PoWER Manager) stated Walsall was the
hardest hit locality from recession and that refresh negotiations
with Government Office West Midlands (GOWM) had taken
this into account in setting a new target for 2011.
People: Kevin Bullas (KB) gave an overview of Walsall’s AntiSocial Behaviour situation and how the Borough Tasking
Group (BTG) are identifying issues geographically and working
together to address them. Main issue is perception of young
people causing problems – Paul Smith gave examples of how
New Deal are trying to resolve these perceptions, working with
young people to identify activity they would like to do and
working with partners to provide activity. Frank Barnes
identified the need for schools to work more closely with
partners.
Places: Introduction of the new model of neighbourhood
management is going to bring about many changes. Although
the council is the main structure for ensuring these changes,
consultants Habanero have been engaged to help implement
them. It is essential that the chair of the group (GF) is kept fully
informed of the changes and that senior staff sign up to the
changes and feed them through to their staff. One key issue
that was raised is that of front-line staff feeling confident and
empowered to take action without fear of disapproval of senior
staff.
It was felt that a leadership group should be established
consisting of senior officers (e.g. Jamie Morris, Keith Stone,
Louise Hughes, Judith Sunley, Mike Tichford).
Prosperity: Tim Ferguson (TF) spoke about the feedback
received from the WP Consultation Event (8 February 2010) on
the Raising Aspirations for Young People Workshop, stating
that many people thought the workshops were too short.
DM agreed that the Consultation Event was a very productive
day and very useful for all partners that attended.
Dr Uma Viswanathan (Walsall PCT) had been invited along to
the meeting by DM where she summarised on her briefing
paper, looking at tackling the issue of Raising Aspirations for
Young People.
The report defined NEETs looking at risk factors involving:





Who are the people most likely to drop out
Homelessness
Mental Health Issues
Teenage Pregnancies
Young people with learning difficulties
What steps we need to prevent this:


Research done around Domestic Violence
Quality of care for young people
Agenda Item 12a


Any Other Business People
Improve young people’s experiences at school
Broaden young people’s experience/aspirations for
the future
The group agreed that this was a good policy planning
document and Ian Redfern (West Midlands Police) said that
the Police fully supported the initiative.
The group spoke about developing management data to
identify groups most at risk from NEETs. This should include
schools data.
Andrew Rumble (PoWER Manager) stated that £300,000 had
been invested from the Working Neighbourhood Fund (WNF)
into the Education Business Partnership, which would help
address the issue of primary and secondary school level.
The group discussed further work being undertaken by EBP,
how this could be applied to raising aspirations and discussed
the role of the Private and Third Sector.
There were no items of Any Other Business.
Any Other Business Places
There were no items of Any Other Business.
Any Other Business Prosperity
Child Poverty Meeting Update Kirsten Moon explained that an update would be presented to
the group at the next meeting on 17 May 2010.
17, May 2010, 2pm.
Conference Room, Walsall Town Hall
Date, Time and Venue of
Next Meeting