Local Strategic Partnership Strategic Monitoring Group

LOCAL STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIP – STRATEGIC MONITORING GROUP

Minutes

DATE 26 January 2006

VENUE Committee Room 2, Guildhall

PRESENT SMG Members: David Atkinson, Chief Executive - City of York Council

Tony Bennett, Asst Director Economic Development, CYC

Keith Jones – Chair, York@Large

Cllr. Steve Galloway – City of York Council (Chair)

Rachel Johns – Director of Public Health, S&YPCT

Tim Madgwick, Chief Superintendent – North Yorkshire Police

Colin Mockler, Head of Performance Improvement, CYC

Patrick Scott, Director of Children’s Services, CYC

Cllr. Andrew Waller – City of York Council

In Attendance: Peter Boardman, Cultural Events Manager, CYC

Bill Hodson, Acting Director, Community Services, CYC

Annette Keogh, Business and Project Devt Manager, CYC

Secretariat: Denise Simms, Senior Partnership Support Officer, CYC

APOLOGIES:

Charlie Croft, Asst. Director, Lifelong Learning & Leisure, CYC

Mike Galloway, Principal – York College

Andy Hudson, Asst Director of Environment & Neighbourhoods,CYC

Jane Mowat, Director,- Safer York Partnership

Bill Woolley, Director of City Strategy, CYC

1 INTRODUCTIONS AND APOLOGIES

Apologies were received from Charlie Croft, Mike Galloway, Andy Hudson, Jane Mowat and Bill Woolley.

Theme Leaders were asked to give a verbal update on progress against the partnership actions to be delivered during 2005/06 and in developing more relevant success measures (if applicable).

2 THE HEALTHY CITY – Rachel Johns

Rachel reported that the Healthy City Board continued to concentrate on smoking cessation work through the YES to clean air campaign and that flyers had been distributed to raise it’s profile within the city. It was noted that current debate concerning legislation might change the focus of smoking cessation work in time.

Board Members were informed that 26% of women in York smoke throughout their pregnancy and that this was particularly high in comparison to the regional average. It was likely that this issue would form a key area of focus in development of the Local Area Agreement.

The Healthy City Board also planned to work with the Active York partnership in order to increase physical activity rates and would continue to work with Safer York Partnership regarding issues around alcohol misuse.

It was reported that Community Health profiles, which were being produced by the Regional Health Observatory, would be available by March 2006. It was anticipated that these profiles would help inform work regarding the development of additional measures and LAA health outcomes.

Rachel also reminded Partners that current consultation regarding NHS structures would have implications for the partnership.

Comments from other Partners included:

·  Partners would benefit from pooling ward based information that could be discussed proactively using a case conference approach;

·  The Neighbourhood Pride Unit had been charged with producing plans for each ward and this information could be used to plan action;

3 THE LEARNING CITY – Patrick Scott

Patrick Scott reported progress in reviewing / achieving the Learning City success measures, which included:

1.  A significant improvement against a slight weakening of the figures nationally in terms of % pupils (at schools maintained by CYC LEA) attaining 5 + A* - G grades at GCSE, including English and Maths.

2.  It had been agreed that more refined and targeted statistics would be developed by Connexions relating to the 14-19 strategies for York and North Yorkshire. It was anticipated that these measures would feed into the LAA.

3.  The Learning and Skills Council no longer collected survey data regarding the % of residents aged 18+ participating in learning, therefore results for this measure were not available. The Learning Partnership Manager was liasing with CYC regarding the potential to collect data via the Talkabout survey.

4.  The measure to increase the number of Skills for Life learners in York was on target and that year end statistics would be issued by the LSC Feb 06.

Progress against Learning City priorities for 2005/6 was confirmed as:

·  14 – 19 strategy for Education and Training had been completed and analysis had found that numbers studying for vocational qualifications had doubled, largely due to the efforts of York College;

·  Some progress had been made in developing an Adult Learning and Skills Strategy for the City, which would pull together funding available for Community Adult Education, Further / Higher Education and workforce development and skills training;

·  York offered unparalleled opportunities to learn from our heritage and preliminary work had been done to establish a Heritage Learning network and a Review had recently been completed.

·  The Children and Young People’s plan and Education Plan were operational from 2005.

·  Higher York received funding from HEFCE to support project work through to July 2007. In addition, a recent bid to HEFCE would provide funding for approximately 1400 additional student places.

Comments from other Partners included:

·  Data regarding the number of young people fall within 14-19 and NEET the categories was available, however it was not possible to identify what they were doing. If this information was available for use in a ‘Task meeting’ type setting it would enable partners to improve provision in a more strategic way.

·  Higher York have established foundation courses that will enable local people to access training opportunities. This was then giving them access to opportunities in the job market.

4 THE THRIVING CITY – Steve Galloway & Tony Bennett

Cllr. Galloway reported on Thriving City progress headlines, including:

·  Unemployment rates remained low;

·  Recovering in terms of retail;

·  Moving ahead with the York Central development, which would create 6000 jobs;

·  Hungate site was granted outline planning permission in July 2005;

·  Development of Coppergate area on the horizon.

Tony Bennett reported on the review of Thriving City success measures using information recently produced by the Audit Commission on economic regeneration indicators. This had led to development of new measures concerning:

1.  Household income and annual pay levels;

2.  Business performance and confidence measured by turnover;

3.  Benefit data / trends – aiming for reduced dependence on benefits;

4.  Skill / attainment levels in the York economy;

5.  Additional supplementary measures related to the key sectors of tourism, Science City and retail.

5 A CITY OF CULTURE – Keith Jones & Peter Boardman

Keith Jones reported that the main focus within the cultural theme for 2005/6 was to promote the City of Festivals brand, particularly via the website and street banners. The GF400 event had brought huge crowds into the city and had resulted in a great deal of good news media coverage.

York@Large were anxious to develop events aimed at encouraging diversity. Part of their concern had been to ensure that residents of York accessed cultural events. They hoped that increasing levels of community involvement highlighted that their concern was being addressed.

Partners were working to develop a three year strategic plan and would contribute to a Local Development Framework ‘planning for real’ exercise in February, in preparation for upcoming developments such as York Central and the Cultural Quarter.

The main priorities for 2006 were the Constantine exhibition and the new Festival of the Rivers. It was hoped that York@Large would make the most of marketing opportunities that would arise due to the number of overlapping events during the summer. Festivals during July would cover 23 of the 31 days. An events network was launched in 2005 specifically geared to people organising and promoting York@Large supported festivals.

It was also reported that full backing had been given to the York Minster Mystery Plays for a production in 2010 and this would be a priority action for York@Large over the next few years.

Peter Boardman reported that it had been difficult to develop more wide-ranging cultural success measures, therefore Partners were still dependent on existing perception measures.

Comments from other Partners included:

·  York@Large invited Without Walls to review membership guidelines for itself and its constituent stakeholder groups;

·  The YorOK Children’s Trust were seeking representation on the LSP;

·  Current consultation regarding the future role of LSPs would be taken into consideration in reviewing membership;

·  It was confirmed that the St Ledger would not form part of the Festivals programme, however it was noted that internal planning elements must be covered.

6 THE SAFER CITY – Tim Madgwick

Tim Madgwick reported that positive progress had been made within the Safer City Theme in recent months. The alcohol misuse campaign had generated a huge amount of media coverage and resulted in a decrease of violent crime by 20% over the Christmas period. Partners should aim to learn from this approach and consider how joint working could address other issues.

Third quarter crime statistics had shown that robbery was reduced by 30%, however car crime had risen. There was concern that young York residents were involved in these crimes and that, rather than custody, a multi-agency partnership approach to problem solving in these cases would be preferable.

Tim felt that Neighbourhood Policing, which was being piloted in five wards, would not work if Partners didn’t share data. Joint working and information sharing would give our communities confidence that they were living in a safer city.

In the year to date (05/06), it was reported that 51,000 general incidents had been reported, with approximately 21,000 crimes and 8,500 people had been through custody (75% of crimes committed by York residents). There was a need to increase capacity in order to cope with this volume of crime.

Tim reported that North Yorkshire had submitted an amalgamation report that accepted the proposal for a Yorkshire police force and that they were actively engaging in the process.

Comments from other Partners included:

·  It was astonishing that 6,000 residents would have been involved in committing crime during 05/06;

·  The figures would include multiple arrests in the prolific offender group – a partnership approach would be required to stop them re-offending e.g. GPs working with drug addicts. POP project had also done good work with this group.

·  Task groups were being formed in the volume crime areas that most affected the city and partners would be tasked through a monthly meeting process.

7 THE SUSTAINABLE CITY – Andrew Waller & Annette Keogh

Cllr. Waller reported that there had been improvement in levels of cleanliness of highways, however resident satisfaction with local areas had gone down. He also commented that the number of abandoned cars had fallen.

Software had been purchased from the Stockholm Environment Institute in order to measure progress in reducing York’s ecological footprint. It was noted that eco-footprint analysis has evolved since York was first assessed and therefore our baseline would have to be re-calculated in light of the revised software.

It was reported that action within the Sustainable City theme had focus included:

1.  Reducing impact on the environment – through the York Green Business Club recycling and waste management initiative, Tidy Business Standards award scheme and the Street Environment Service;

2.  Preparing supplementary planning guidance on sustainable design and construction – consultation on draft due Spring 2006;

3.  Street Clutter Project – St Helen’s Square had been piloted and further work was due to start in Duncombe Place;

4.  Four Village Design Statements were completed, with a further two out to consultation;

5.  The Local Transport Plan would be submitted in March 2006;

Comments from other Partners included:

·  Theft of cycles from public places remains a challenge for this city. We should look at the problem holistically and come up with a real solution through LTP2, particularly as we are encouraging people to cycle more.

·  Secure parking had worked well at the Hospital and Monks Cross Park and Ride.

8 THE INCLUSIVE CITY – Colin Mockler & Bill Hodson

Colin Mockler updated Partners on Inclusive York Forum (IYF) key actions and reported that:

1.  York Community Legal Advice Service Partnership was now fully developed and a series of projects was being progressed;

2.  York Credit Union were awaiting FSA authorisation before they could launch and funding from the Tudor Trust (£56k over two years) had been confirmed;

3.  A Scrutiny Panel report on inclusive decision making processes was nearing completion and would report in March / April. IYF members supported the possibility of holding a citywide equalities conference, building on the CYC equalities conference held in 2005.

4.  A sub-group of IYF had been working on a multi-agency anti-poverty strategy. The aim was for the strategy to address poverty at neighbourhood level and where it impacts on particular disadvantaged groups. There would be scope to link this work in with development of Neighbourhood Action Plans.

5.  Concern had been expressed by IYF members regarding the re-provision of two homeless hostels. This was a key challenge for the city if reductions in rough sleeping and homelessness were to be maintained.

It was reported that additional success measures had been adopted regarding voluntary activity (% of residents who affirm that they carried out voluntary work in an organisation at least 3 times in the past year) and governance (% residents who feel they can influence decisions affecting their local area). These measures were mandatory indicators collected as part of the revised Safer and Stronger Communities Agreement, which would be in place by April 2006.

IYF had asked its members to identify the key issues and barriers that face the most excluded groups in the city. The purpose would be to identify common areas of concern or themes that could be tackled either through the work of IYF or through the wider partnership. This work would help focus priorities for 2006/7.

Bill Hodson commented that homelessness and Housing Waiting List figures remained constant (at 430 and 2,170 respectively). These issues were tied up to other factors, such as affordable housing, and weren’t necessarily useful indicators. Partners could take a broader view regarding success measures, for example, ensuring take-up of incapacity benefit was a very important factor in enabling vulnerable people to keep their home.

Comments from other Partners included:

·  One of the key reasons for re-offending following prison release was the difficulty in finding suitable accommodation quickly;

·  There was a shared determination to ensure that the Peasholme and Arc Light facilities were replaced.