Cardiff Partnership Leadership Group

Minutes of the meeting held at 10:00am on Wednesday 12th December 2012

Meeting Room 2, Tiger Bay Suite, @ Loudoun, Loudoun Square

Members of the Group:
Cllr Lynda Thorne (LT) Chair / Cabinet Member for Communities, Housing and Social Justice
Cllr Richard Cook (RC) / Cabinet Member for Social Care, Health and Well Being – Children’s Services
Maria Battle (MB) / Chair of Cardiff and Vale University Health Board
Judith Marsh (JM) / Community Council representative
Sarah McGill (SM) / Corporate Chief Officer - Communities, Cardiff Council
David Price (DP) / Director of Strategy Development, Cardiff Metropolitan University
Adrian Clark (AC) / Chair, Cardiff and Co
John Harrison (JHa) / Environment Manager, Environment Agency Wales
Professor Hywel Thomas (HT) / Pro Vice Chancellor (Engagement and International), Cardiff University
In attendance:
Rachel Jones (RJ) / Operational Manager – Policy, Partnerships and Citizen Focus, Cardiff Council
Emma Robinson (ER) / Partnership Engagement Officer, Cardiff Council
Conrad Eydmann (CE) / Cardiff and Vale Substance Misuse Manager, Cardiff and Vale Public Health Team
Martin Hamilton (MH) / Chief Officer, City Management, Cardiff Council
Dan Howe (DH) / Chief Inspector, South Wales Police
Nici Evans (NE) / Partnership Development Manager, Cardiff and Vale UHB
Zoe Evans (ZE) / Nurse Practitioner, Cardiff and Vale UHB
Charlotte Pritchard (CP) / Senior Health Care Support Worker, A&E, Cardiff and Vale UHB
Morgan Fackrell (MF) / Chief Executive, Cardiff Women’s Aid
Apologies:
Cllr Heather Joyce / Leader of the Council
Cllr Luke Holland / Cabinet Member for Social Care, Health and Well Being – Adult Services
Jon House / Chief Executive, Cardiff Council
Mark Cadwallader / Head of Strategic Development, University of Glamorgan
Richard Edwards / Chair of Cardiff Third Sector Council
Sue Mabberley / Regional Manager, Countryside Council for Wales
Simon Harris / Wales Director, Business in the Community
Dave Greaves / Inspector, South Wales Police
Part 1: Cardiff Partnership Leadership Group
1). Welcome and Apologies / ACTION
LT welcomed everyone to the meeting and to the new @Loudoun centre, highlighting the centre and its facilities as a great example of what can be achieved in partnership. LT highlighted that in times of increasing pressures on services, reducing budgets and Welsh Government’s impetus on regional collaboration; partnerships are the way forward to work together to achieve more.
Apologies were received from Cllr Heather Joyce, Cllr Luke Holland, Jon House, Mark Cadwallader, Richard Edwards, Sue Mabberley and Simon Harris. Members of the group then introduced themselves. / Action: Name cards to be prepared for next meeting
2). Minutes of the last meeting and Matters Arising / ACTION
The minutes of 18th September were agreed as an accurate record.
Matters Arising
·  Feedback from the Cardiff Partnership Board (CPB) and Scrutiny Panel
SM updated the group with information from the last CPB meeting on 5th December. The CPB received an update on the Wyn Campaign and how this manifests itself on the local level, via a presentation from the Chairs of Cardiff South East Neighbourhood Management team.
·  Regional Collaboration Fund
RJ explained that Welsh Government (WG) are encouraging collaborative working between local authorities and wider public services across regional footprints and want to accelerate the pace of work of this nature via the Regional Collaboration Fund (£1.5 million is available over a period of 3 years). Cardiff is in arrangements with the Vale of Glamorgan and WG are calling for proposals that meet their identified criteria. Proposals are not exclusive to joint working with the Vale and can be for other areas in South Wales and the fund is not just open to local authorities. The proposals should not be new ideas, rather ways to make current collaborative approaches more sustainable and overcome existing barriers. Initial discussions have taken place including proposals around the Integrated Health and Social Care (IHSC) programme, Trading Standards and a new model for Sexual Assault Referral Centre (SARC) delivery in South Wales. The deadlines are tight, initial proposals have to be submitted by 18th January 2013 and final proposals due 23rd February 2013. Cardiff Council’s Cabinet will be discussing with members from Vale of Glamorgan in the new year.
MB stated that the Health Board are already in talks with the Vale of Glamorgan on how to integrate work further, particularly in adult health and social care. It is only by working together that better outcomes can be achieved. The IHSC is already helping the two authorities work closer together and the Health Board are gathering real evidence of what is working elsewhere in the UK and how that can be applied in the context of Cardiff and the Vale.
JM referenced a Patients group that carried out a piece of work on collaborative work in the past, particularly on consultant led maternity services and offered to forward these findings onto MB.
JHa, who sits on the Vale of Glamorgan Local Service Board (LSB), mentioned that regional collaboration is on their agenda for their meeting tomorrow. The agenda is welcomed by the Board and certain sensitivities that may arise around the issue of collaboration are not apparent on this level.
DP suggested that partnership working around the Local Education Authority (LEA) agenda may be timely, ahead of large changes the Minister for Education is making.
·  WG White Paper on Sustainable Development
RJ talked the group through the briefing paper on WG’s White Paper on Sustainable Development. They are proposing a new duty to embed sustainable development within public sector organisations to become more accountable for sustainability with increased emphasis on outcomes in terms of what is delivered.
An independent body will be set up to monitor and deliver this. RJ flagged that there is a proposal to make LSBs statutory and highlighted that currently it is only the strategy itself that is statutory, not the partnership arrangements in place that service the strategy.
RJ is preparing a response on behalf of the partnership and the Council will be submitting a separate response. RJ would like the response to be signed off by early-February for submission on 4th March.
JM and DP told the group that One Voice Wales and Cardiff Metropolitan University have already responded and will forward these responses to RJ.
·  CPB Scrutiny Panel Feedback
RJ reminded the group that the CPB Scrutiny Panel is a newly established group that brings together the five chairs of Cardiff Council’s scrutiny committees and representatives from each statutory partner including the Health Board and the Police authority. RJ highlighted the letter of recommendation received from their first panel meeting and that they recommend the membership of the CPLG (and CPB) include at least one nominee to represent the interests of minority groups in Cardiff.
The group agreed that it was the responsibility of all existing members to ensure the interests of minority groups are represented throughout the partnership and their individual organisations and as such did not feel it appropriate to broaden the core membership. If there is a particular issue on the agenda that warrants input from a minority group then a representative will be asked to attend to reflect that. This is true of other groups and not just minority groups and all members have statutory duties regarding equalities and the protected characteristics.
JM stated that the Neighbourhood Management groups, as well as the other workstreams, offer the most effective mechanism for ensuring representation of minority groups as this is where the specifics of the needs assessment and implications of service delivery is discussed. LT added that the Neighbourhood Management programme is currently under review and is examining political representation at their meetings.
LT concluded by saying all organisations need to take account of the needs of all minority groups and this will be fed back to the Scrutiny panel.
·  Welfare Reform
The Welfare Reform task group is very well attended and is currently dealing with important and urgent issues.
Cardiff Council has now received notification from WG and will face a 10% reduction in Council Tax Support Scheme (approximately 35,000 people currently receive help through this scheme). Letters have been sent to all 35,000 households and the response from this has been currently less than anticipated. There will be a significant campaign in the New Year, including road shows, briefing sessions and coverage in Capital Times. SM asked the group to suggest representatives from their organisation to attend the Welfare Reform communication task group as currently it is very Council-centric and needs to include other organisations’ information.
LT added that staff in everyone’s organisation will be affected by the reform and as such, everyone has a responsibility to ensure that their staff are supported through these changes.
RJ provided the group with a brief update on Families First, explaining that it is a £29m procurement exercise that focuses on early intervention and preventative programmes to support families living in, or at risk of, poverty. This has been a major piece of work and very intensive. There will be a launch event in the New year. The programme has changed the way the Council commission services to a very outcomes based approach that requires collaboration. Previously, 83 programmes existed in isolation and now, Families First increases accountability and performance management. RC added that he is looking forward the programme helping the people that need it most and hopes that it will be a great success over the next 5 years.
·  Demand for Services / Census
SM explained that the outline Census summary should accompany the Demand for Services Paper. It is interesting to see the changing trends and more work needs to be done to cross tabulate against categories such as ethnicity and economy. CE asked for a comparison between this and the last Census and SM said that this information will be prepared and brought to the next meeting. / Action: CPB documents to be circulated to Leadership Group
Action: All to forward suggestions to RJ that can inform regional collaboration discussions
Action: JM to forward information to MB
Action: All to feed into draft response to WG White Paper on Sustainable Development by early- Feb
Action: Partnership Team to send reminder out for responses in New Year
Action: JM and DP to forward One Voice Wales and Cardiff Met’s response to RJ
Action: Secretariat to prepare group’s feedback response to Scrutiny panel recommendation
Action: Group to nominate representatives to join Welfare Reform Communication Group
Action: Census to return as substantive item at next meeting. More detailed report to be included.
2). Overview of Alcohol and Drug Abuse in Cardiff
LT introduced CE who provided a presentation on the overview of alcohol and drug abuse in the city and gave the context and background to work in this area.
CE presented ‘An Overview of Substance Misuse in Cardiff. (Presentation attached.
AC asked how the programmes work together to ensure there isn’t any duplication. CE replied by saying there is currently a lack of service specification and a clear framework. At the moment, the work is responding to demand and it needs to take into account the multiple needs of people.
HT would like to encourage the student population to engage with work in this area. NE mentioned the ASB pathway as a way to engage with students.
All were really encouraged by the work taking place and LT concluded that there is a need to share what is happening to the wider world and work needs to be done to communicate this message. A communication strategy that cuts across all sectors and service areas to share partnership activity needs to be in place and CE will bring their communication strategy to the group once completed in the new year. JM added that a good executive summary is needed to grab the attention of the press. / Action: Partnership Communication strategy, to include update on work in this area, to be developed
3). Identifying Good Practice and Barriers to Change
MH and DH presented on Operation Mistletoe and the Night Time Economy together. MH began by setting the wider context, explaining that there is a blurring between the night time and day time economy; citing the example of St David’s 2 where restaurants are open later and people access its car park later in the night. 38 million people are in Cardiff over the Christmas period and contribute £1.6 billion to the city’s economy. This increases pressure on the hoteliers who are impacted by late night revelry. Cardiff has the highest concentration of licensed premises in the UK and approximately 1.6m people are out at night in Cardiff over the Christmas period. This sees an increase in alcohol sales of 50%. To indicate the scale of the challenge, if each individual drank only 3 pints this would fill an Olympic size swimming pool.
Cardiff has changed in the fact that every night is now a busy night and not just busy over Christmas or at sporting events.
The Licensees Forum provides a key part of managing the night time economy. It is now a requirement for all door staff to have a radio system and these are all linked up and monitored by the Council. The Police and Council hold regular briefings before the evening and mystery shoppers monitor taxi service as well as the ambassadors and street pastors.
DH explained that a partnership response over the Christmas period has been delivered over the last 7/8 years and Operation Mistletoe builds on partnership activity throughout the year.
Lots of elements are drawn together over the 10 week period. This has seen a reduction in violent crime and anti social behaviour, improved the city’s image to shoppers and businesses and ensured that the city can cope with the increase in people and vehicles coming into the city over the Christmas period.
The reduction in violent crime was a particular success last year, with no incidents involving injury from using glass as a weapon.
Work is also done in the day time economy. The number of shoppers visiting Cardiff over the Christmas period has increased by 6% over the last year and Cardiff is one of the top 3 shopping destinations in the UK over Christmas.