Agenda and minutes

Presenter Lys Coleman (BMG) – to start at 2pm in Council Chamber

Members adjourned to the Council Chamber for a presentation of results from the Epping Forest Place Survey carried out by BMG and jointly commissioned by the LSP and Epping Forest Council (EFDC). The presentation, which was also attended by officers and members of EFDC, looked at residents views about their area as a place to live, key priorities for improvement and how satisfied they were with a range of public services. Over 1,300 residents took part in the survey, and while final results have yet to be confirmed by the Audit Commission, the presentation picked out a number of areas which will need to be addressed in the developing Community Strategy.

The Chairman introduced and welcomed new Board members, Jeannie Wright from Epping Forest College and Keith Brown from the Federation of Small Businesses to their first meeting. The Board had previously requested that additional representation from the areas of business, skills and education should be sought. Representation from Jobcentre plus (Liz Hand), the Lea Valley Regional Park Authority (David Antsey), and a Secondary School Headteacher (representative from the 14-19 Year Group to be confirmed) has been secured.

The Chairman asked the meeting to formally endorse the new members and this was agreed. John also pointed out that Clive Snell was happy to continue as a representative from the Business community on the Board.

Apologies which had been received were read out by John Houston. Yvette Wetton stated that due to the elections she was sitting as deputy whilst a new ECC representative was nominated, it was hoped that the new representative would be in place by the next meeting.

(Ref : Attachments 3a and 3b)

Minutes of the last meeting (26^th Feb 2009) were agreed as a true record.

John Houston highlighted one item on the Matters Arising document marked as Red, namely the setting up of the Healthier Communities Theme Group which would be discussed later on the agenda. All other items are progressing well.

LonicaVanclay

Lonica Vanclay gave an overview of the role and current structure of the CYPSP.  The CYPSP Board is concerned with the strategic planning, commissioning and performance management of children’s services and through the Local Delivery Groups and themed subgroups facilitates the coordinated delivery of children’s services provided by statutory and voluntary organisations. CYPSP structure and membership mirrors the LSP, with a CYPSP Board, Coordinating Group and a number of sub groups all with membership from key local agencies. This structure is under review and may change in the future. Lonica gave an overview of each of the Delivery Groups within the structure. Over the last year, the CYPSP has focused on strengthening its commissioning work. The next year will focus on performance management and measuring activities against expected outcomes.

Lonica explained the review that is underway into the Children’s Trust approach.  This review reflects Government indications that Children’s Trusts should be strengthened as well as Essex County CYPSP’s own wish to improve consistent provision of service outcomes across the County.  The conclusions of the Childrens Trust commissioning review should be presented in September 09.   The emerging view is that future commissioning will be led through 4 or 5 groups, perhaps based on PCT boundaries in Essex, rather than the current 11.There is also a review of how children’s services are delivered across the County, looking at how provider organisations can work together more effectively. The review of the delivery of services will last until November 09.

The Children and Young People’s Plan is being revised and one outcome of the reviews will be a heightened expectation that local plans align much more closely with the overall (County) plan.

The Chairman reported that a meeting had taken place that morning between the Chairman, Derek Macnab, John Houston and Peter Martin and Graham Tombs from County to discuss CYPSP developments. Concerns were expressed that local needs should be reflected in any restructure and resources not be lost to Epping Forest.

Brian Surtees pointed out that the presentation did not contain any reference to Voluntary Sector, Faith Groups or Town and Parish Councils. He said there was a need to drive activity and thinking down to that level and sought assurance that this was happening. Lonica stated that there was such representation on CYPSP sub groups and on the Board, although Town and Parish Councils are not represented on the CYPSP Board. Brian Surtees also asked for an explanation of ‘activity effective intervention’. Lonica explained it as identifying activities that make the most significant impact on particular outcomes. Ann Haigh gave an example, where ‘Action for Children’ are setting up activities in the Loughton and Buckhurst Hill area in conjunction with Children’s Centres, of which Ann is Chair of the Board. Ann will take the requirement to link in with the CYPSP review back to the Children’s Centre Board.                        Action 01

John Houston gave feedback from the successful CYPSP Away Day held on 18^th May 2009. He said there was a great  ...  view the full minutes text for item 5.

Chair.  Minutes of Steering Group – 4^th April 2009 attached

(Ref : Attachment 6)

John Houston reported that the minutes from the most recent Steering Group (28^th May 2009) were not available as yet but would be circulated for information with the minutes from this meeting. Minutes of the Steering Group on 4 April had already been circulated. He reported that all key activities were on track. The LSP had also sponsored a successful seminar run by EERA on Skills and Worklessness which had been held in Epping.

Action 02

7.1       CYPSP

Caroline Skinner gave a CYPSP update based around the minutes of the last CYPSP Board which had been circulated to members. She said that the Away Day had been very useful. She restated the observation that local views and needs are not missed in any new CYPSP structure. The relationship between the LSP and CYPSP is an area that is developing and better connections are being made. To that end, the LSP will be a standing item on CYPSP Board meetings, and the LSP Manager will attend. Caroline stated that projects are to be monitored more closely in future but that monitoring should be proportionate to the size of the project.

There is a meeting on 12^th June to review all current bids for funding.  A process will be introduced to allow for young people to feed into the bid evaluation process and Board activities. This new process will be preceded by a briefing to young people to explain how they can provide feedback.

Action 03

CYPSP is to join with the LSP in the stakeholder event which will be pulled together to consult on the developing Sustainable Community Strategy and possibly run one of the workshops.

Action 04

There was discussion at the recent CYPSP Board meeting about Children’s Centres. It was recognised that virtual centres can be of benefit, with more effort focused on out reach work rather than management and administration.

Waltham Abbey is a particular focus, the PCT and CYPSP are looking at initiatives that would benefit young people in the area.

Caroline gave an overview of the volunteer breast feeding program. This is joint PCT / CYPSP programme providing volunteers to help and support newly breastfeeding mothers. Caroline will feed back on project progress as part of the standard CYPSP update to the Board.

Action 05

7.2       Safer Communities Partnership

John Gilbert gave an update on the work of the partnership based around the minutes of the last SCP Strategy Panel meeting. The overall picture was of decreasing levels of crime. Crime is down by 8%, personal assault is down, theft, burglary and stealing from cars is of concern. There are still concerns about the perception of crime. The Safer Communities Partnership will be looking at ways of better publicising the results of its efforts to ensure people understand that crime is going down. The partnership will be looking at how the police can better engage with the public to ensure they deliver what the community wants. This will be done via existing local neighbourhood panels.

John said that work was underway on NI35 (combating violent extremism) with the police. An application is being made to government for funding to help with engaging the local Muslim community in particular.

Action 06

Keith Brown said that there has been an increase in business related crime and asked whether local business could be represented on the SCP. John responded by saying that local business groups had been invited to the last SCP co-ordinating group,  ...  view the full minutes text for item 7.

8.1       Sustainable Community Strategy

Derek Macnab updated Board members on proposals for taking the project forward. Producing the Strategy, which was a statutory requirement on the partners and would inform the key plans of the district council and other statutory agencies. A written report to the Board set out some of the key requirements of the strategy and options for its production. The current strategy has been in existence for around 5 years and is in need of a refresh. An initial scoping meeting for the new strategy has taken place. Derek emphasised the key link between the SCS and the Local Development Framework (LDF). The SCS is an aspirational document outlining priorities of the local community and the key challenges to be met. The LDF is one of the delivery vehicles to help achieve the priorities. Due to the nature of the district (rural and local communities) there will be an element of localism in the SCS. An initial project plan has been drawn up. It was noted that there is a lack of an overall data picture, bringing key facts and figures together from a wide variety of sources. Steps are being taken to rectify this, Essex County Council (ECC) are supporting the data collection programme, with MOSAIC being purchased as a source of improved profiling and ward level data. The development phases of the SCS will be

The development phases of the SCS will be

            Initial research/data gathering

            Key partner consultation – to ensure the new SCS influences strategies of other relevant agencies

            Public Consultation – ECC will provide up to £10,000 to support this work.

            Community Conference – to ratify the outcome of Public Consultation

            SCS to be adopted by LSP Board in December 2009

Action 11

One of the suggestions contained in the report from the SCS Task and Finish Team was a mini Board awayday to discuss the key themes/targets which should be included in the SCS. The Chairman asked members if they were keen for an Away Day in autumn 2009. Colin Thompson said he was in favour, this was supported by Jacqui Foile. Derek stressed the difference between an LSP Away Day, for the LSP Board to review how it works and develops and a Community Conference where the LSP would open up to the wider public to discuss the SCS. The Chairman suggested we might be able to do both on the same day. Brian Surtees said that a Community Conference would need to be very flexible (possibly evenings and weekends) and would need to be very well publicised in order to attract the maximum participants.

John Houston outlined ways that we might engage people at the public consultation stage, suggestions were supermarket days, targeting particular groups such as young people, use of existing survey data and trend information. He suggested that the conference could be a stakeholder conference to allow the draft SCS to be challenged in detail to ensure the right areas to be addressed have been identified. Caroline  ...  view the full minutes text for item 8.

The Steering Group has agreed that each of the projects funded by Performance Reward grant in Epping Forest should have an opportunity to present an update on their work and progress to a Board meeting. This followed an initial suggestion from the Local Area Agreement (LAA) project team which has just been established to manage and monitor the delivery of LAA funded schemes locally. The first two projects to present were community safety and community transport.

Caroline Wiggins gave an update on the theatre project for older people run in conjunction with Essex Police and University of 3^rd Age (U3A) called Feeling Good, Feeling Safe. The programme is going well, running throughout the summer. Leaflets have been produced. A Safer Communities website is currently under development which will have links to all partner websites. It will also contain information about the latest SCP campaigns. Two lots of funding have been received from the LSP, £20,000 for publicity and information material and £35,000 towards CCTV refurbishment and renewal.

Angela Canham gave an update on two Community Transport projects. The first is to ensure that primary school pupils can access after school clubs.  This project was due to start in September of this year, but has started in April with Shelley Primary School. 11 children are being taken to this club. A Tuesday evening club is proposed but has no children yet.

The second project is designed to help get young people, parents and carers out into the community. This project is due to start in the next week and will run once a week.

The Chairman thanked Caroline and Angela for their updates.

Date of Future Meetings

John Houston stated that all expected financial contributions from funding partners had now been gratefully received.

John informed the Board that an audit of Performance indicators had been undertaken to confirm the range of PIs the partnership had signed up to, and should be monitoring, and identify how the monitoring information would be compiled. The indicators that have been signed up to are being reviewed in order to focus on a more realistic set of PIs. John has a taken a seat on the Essex Performance Management Group to get a County wide view on best practice, and a final list of indicators and targets for the LSP to focus on will be confirmed following the agreement of the Sustainable Community Strategy.

Action 19, 20

The LSP manager is now meeting regularly with LSP lead officers from Harlow and Uttlesford with a view to coordinating and linking up activity wherever appropriate.  A potential joint bid for Local Improvement Advisor support from EERA is being discussed to get advice on developing shared services, performance management and maximising our access to funding streams.

As agreed the LSP Away Day will be planned for autumn 2009.  John invited members to suggest additional items for the days agenda, or suggestions for keynote speakers. Comments to be fed back by end of June. Brian Surtees asked the meeting how any theme from a speaker or session would be disseminated to the local level. John suggested we look for an LSP that is renowned for doing ‘localism’ well and tap into their expertise.

Action 21, 22

Next meeting – 24^th September 2009

Following meeting – 17^th December 2009

Two dates for 2010 are

18^th March 2010

17^th June 2010

Colin Thompson asked if the LSP was now on a more secure financial footing as previous minutes had identified expenditure significantly outstripping income. John Houston confirmed that these underlying issues had now been addressed.

The Chairman welcomed Sheila Jackman and apologised for not doing so at the beginning of the meeting. Sheila is the first member of the public to attend for some time.

The Board received a short update from Simon Williams on the Prevent Strategy.