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The review of the Community Strategy was completed at the beginning of 2006. It was developed into our first Sustainable Community Strategy (SCS) called, “Many Faces, One Community”. The strategy is built around the four shared ambitions of the LSP. These are:
· An area that is thriving
· Communities that are confident and caring
· Individuals see the difference
· Everybody works together for the benefit of North Lincolnshire
The SCS identifies the outcomes which will improve the social, economic and environmental well-being of North Lincolnshire and provides indicators and improvement targets to achieve these outcomes.
In 2006 the LSP negotiated North Lincolnshire’s first Local Area Agreement (LAA) which was planned to start on the 1 April 2007. The LAA was structured around four themes:
· Children and Young People
· Safer and Stronger Communities
· Healthier Communities and Older People
· Economic Development and the Environment
The LAA provides a high level action plan for the delivery of the SCS for the period 2007- 2010. It describes in a range of outcomes, indicators and targets how the SCS improvement will be delivered and it outlines the arrangements to finance such improvements. It also has a potential reward grant of £4.2 million. The grant is based on 30 stretch targets being achieved across 12 projects.
During 2007/08 the LSP will be overseeing the performance of the LAA to ensure its outcomes are delivered for the benefit of the people of North Lincolnshire.
Local Strategic Partnerships (LSPs) are required to set local targets for delivering improvements in community well-being and to monitor progress over time. Communities Count has continued to support both North Lincolnshire LSP and North East Lincolnshire LSP in this role over the last 12 months, against the background of a new national agenda for delivering and monitoring better outcomes for local communities.
More detailed guidance is yet to be published by the Department for Communities and Local Government. So it is not yet clear what the final outcome indicator set for monitoring Local Area Agreements (LAAs) will look like. However, the latest guidance makes it clear that the LSP and other local strategic partnerships will be required to demonstrate that the priorities identified within the revised LAA and Sustainable Community Strategy are underpinned by robust local evidence of need, and that delivery of these priority outcomes are monitored over time.
In 2006, a revised Sustainable Community Strategy for North Lincolnshire was published, Many Faces, One Community. This set out the shared ambitions for North Lincolnshire over the next few years and includes a much reduced number of indicators for monitoring how well these local outcomes are being delivered. These 25 indicators also form part of the current North Lincolnshire LAA.
This report summarises the results for these 25 indicators in 2006/7 and gives a brief assessment of performance over the last three years. In a number of cases it is not possible to judge progress in real time – either because the data are not yet available or because the data are not released by Government departments for some 12-18 months after they are collected.
Other work completed by Communities Count for North Lincolnshire LSP this year include:
· Updated neighbourhood profiles for each electoral ward
· Preparations for a second Adolescent Lifestyle Survey across all North Lincolnshire secondary schools
In 2007/8 we will be relaunching our website to reflect the new set of LAA and LSP outcome indicators. In the meantime our work and other relevant reports can be accessed on: www.communitiescount.org.uk.
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Road accidents are a leading cause of death and serious injury in this country and affect a large proportion of the population, with enormous social costs to individuals, their families and friends. In addition, the economic cost of road accidents to business, the police and the health service is estimated to be in the region of £3 billion nationally. In 2000 the Government set ambitious traffic casualty reduction targets to be achieved by 2010 from a 1994-8 baseline. These were to reduce:
· by 40% the total number of people killed or seriously injured on our roads,
· by 50% the number of children killed or seriously injured on our roads
· by 10% the number of people slightly injured.
· With a particular focus on tackling road safety problems in disadvantaged areas.
Local partners have been working hard to improve road safety in North Lincolnshire, tackle poor driving and raise public awareness of road safety measures, and in 2006 the overall decline in deaths and serious injuries on our roads continued. In that year, 108 people were either killed or seriously injured on North Lincolnshire’s roads, a reduction of 20% on the previous year and the lowest level recorded since 1996. Between January and December 2006, there were half as many fatalities compared with the previous year. There were also significant reductions in child casualties, with no child fatalities recorded in 2006.
Children and young people are most at risk when walking or playing on the roads, with children from low income families being five times more at risk of injury or death than a child from a high income family. Older teenagers are at increased risk when travelling with young drivers. Amongst adults, younger drivers, motorcyclists and those who drive for work are all at much greater risk of a serious accident, hence the renewed focus on road safety initiatives aimed at these groups of road users.
However, child road safety should not be seen in isolation of other policies, such as schemes to encourage exercise and sustainable travel to school. Also, some general problems may impact on safety, for example, lack of suitable playing areas or poor lighting in some areas.
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There continues to be impressive progress in the number of pupils achieving five GCSEs at grades A*-C in North Lincolnshire schools. Provisional figures for 2007 indicate that 60% of 15 year olds achieved at least five good grades at GCSE in North Lincolnshire, exceeding the local target and meeting the national target one year ahead of schedule. There have also been improvements in the basics, with another annual increase in the proportion of pupils achieving five good GCSEs including English and Maths. This represents an increase of more than 6 percentage points since 2003. However, the gap between national and local results on this deliberately tougher national measure remains wide.
Provisional results show that no school in North Lincolnshire achieved less than 30% of pupils attaining 5 or more GCSE grades A*-C in 2007.
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National teenage pregnancy rates have been coming down steadily since 1998 and are now at their lowest level for twenty years. However, there is wide variation in progress across the country. Under 18 conception rates in North Lincolnshire have remained above the national average during this period and it is unlikely that the target for a 50% reduction by 2010 from a 1998 baseline will be met locally.
In July 2006 the Government issued Teenage Pregnancy Next Steps: Guidance for Local Authorities and Primary Care Trusts on Effective Delivery of Local Strategies. The guidance sets out what is known about effective delivery of local teenage pregnancy strategies, based on in-depth reviews carried out in a number of areas with differing levels of success in reducing under-18 conception rates. This suggests that if all areas were doing as well as the top quartile, (25%), the national reduction would be 23% - more than double the current rate of progress.
North Lincolnshire’s Teenage Pregnancy Partnership Board has agreed a local action plan, which it monitors annually to check progress and to plan future activity. Strengthening the delivery of this strategy, particularly in neighbourhoods with high teenage pregnancy rates, high levels of deprivation and low levels of educational attainment is therefore a key part of this plan.
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Crime reduction remains a key priority for local residents and for North Lincolnshire’s Local Strategic Partnership. Residents tend to worry most about personal property crime, such as domestic burglary and vehicle crimes, both of which have fallen considerably in North Lincolnshire since 2003/4. On current trends North Lincolnshire is set to meet the target reduction in these and other crimes by 2010, although significant reductions in high volume crimes such as criminal damage and theft from vehicles will have to be maintained year on year if the target is to be met comfortably.
These two crimes remain a key priority for the local Safer Neighbourhoods Partnership and the most recent reports for 2007/8 show that joint efforts to reduce these are beginning to pay off, with a 20% reduction in reports of criminal damage in the first five months of 2007/8 compared with the same period in 2006/7 and a 28% reduction in the number of recorded vehicle crimes.
Domestic burglaries continue to fall with the number now standing at least half what it was in 2003/4. Between April to August 2007 domestic burglaries were 11% down on the same period in 2006.
Tackling antisocial behaviour is another key priority area for local agencies, with responsibilities for action extending beyond the police and other Safe Neighbourhood partners. When asked in a recent survey what types of antisocial behaviour were a big problem in there area, more than 40% of residents identified parents not taking responsibility for the behaviour of their children as a major issue in their area. When asked what issues were most in need of improvement, activities for teenagers came top, followed by reductions in crime, improved road repairs and cleaner streets.
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People's views about where they live, whether they enjoy living there and whether they feel they can influence decisions which affect their local area are key components of quality of life and have an impact on people’s sense of belonging. A community is unlikely to function well if people feel they have little influence on what happens in their local area, and they may see little point in engaging in activities which seek to make things better. Asking residents how much influence they feel they have on local decisions is also a good way of gauging the effectiveness of local attempts to consult with the public on important local issues.
In 2004, a sample of North Lincolnshire adults were asked whether they felt they could influence decisions affecting their local area in the North Lincolnshire Crime and Community Survey. Only 8% agreed with this statement. In 2005 the figure increased to 12% and in 2006 this figure had increased to 20%. Even though the proportion of people who feel they can influence decisions affecting their local area has increased year on year since 2004, only a fifth of people felt they could influence decisions in 2006. This suggests that the majority of the population feel disconnected from decisions that affect their lives. This may be due to lack of information about ways that the public can influence decision making, or it could reflect a genuine sense that what they say makes little or no difference.
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This indicator is a first step towards gauging the degree of cohesion in our local communities and has been surveyed at regular intervals across North Lincolnshire.
The 2004 survey results revealed that 45% of respondents felt that their area was a place where people from different backgrounds got on well together. This figure increased fractionally in 2005/6 and has since fallen back to 39% in 2006/7. The local target is to increase this to at least 50% by 2010, across North Lincolnshire as a whole and in the Crosby and Acorns neighbourhood areas.
Volunteering
Voluntary activity has a positive impact on individuals and on the wider community. For the individual there is a beneficial effect on self esteem and a greater sense of well-being. For the community, volunteering can help to reduce the demand for formal support services and strengthen community identity.
One of the targets within the North Lincolnshire Community Strategy is to increase the number of people volunteering in our local communities.
This target is split into two elements; a) to increase the number of new volunteers, b) to increase the number of volunteers from ‘hard to reach’ groups.
Targets for each element were set by central government. From a baseline of zero in 2005, the target is for 900 new volunteers by December 2008, including 130 from hard to reach groups. By September 2007, 135 new volunteers had been recruited, with an encouraging number (73) from ‘hard to reach’ groups. There is a reward attached to this target and to obtain any reward at least 60% of the target must be achieved.
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The Government has set a national target to reduce health inequalities by 10% by 2010, as measured by infant mortality and life expectancy at birth, reducing by at least 10% the gap between the fifth poorest areas and the population as a whole. Overall the target is to increase life expectancy for males to 79 years and 83 years for women.
Although life expectancy has improved for everyone during the last decade, the graph clearly shows that for those living in the poorest fifth of our neighbourhoods, life expectancy continues to lag behind the average and is almost four years lower for males and more than two years lower for females. Indeed, male life expectancy in these poorest areas is only marginally above what it was for all males in 1990-92.
The challenge that lies ahead is thus to raise life expectancy amongst our poorest residents and meet the national target for all groups by 2010.
Circulatory diseases are a major cause of early death accounting for a third of deaths in men, and a quarter of all deaths in women under the age of 65. Deaths from coronary heart disease and stroke are the most common causes in this age group and are potentially preventable. They also affect the most disadvantaged in society. Although the North Lincolnshire death rate from these diseases has been falling steadily since 1995/97, and is currently below the national average, rates of premature deaths in the most deprived areas of North Lincolnshire remain high. In 2002/04, the premature death rate from circulatory diseases in our poorest neighbourhoods was 141.5 per 100,000 under 75s, compared with 94.0 per 100,000 population across North Lincolnshire as a whole.