Issue - items at meetings - Sustainable Community Strategy - update from workshop

Report of the Director Strategy and Governance

41.1 The Chair of the Commission welcomed the LSP Chair to the meeting as part of the agreed protocol to develop the relationship between the LSP and the overview and scrutiny function.

41.2 Roger French OBE said it was a privilege to be Chair of the Local Strategic Partnership and in a position to help facilitate joint working. He referred to the considerable benefits of partnerships; including the Local Authority, Police, Health, Business and Community and Voluntary sectors; working together to achieve more than can be done as individual organisations. The Community and Voluntary sector organisations were particularly valuable and strong in the City he said.

41.3 He spoke about the developing role of overview and scrutiny in relation to the LSP, the remits of both being wider than the Council.

41.4 Some of the targets agreed under the Local Area Agreement were, as expected, tough to attain. The Audit Commission’s Comprehensive Areas Assessment of the LSP would be available in December. A draft indicates areas of improved performance and also areas where further shared effort is needed.

41.5 Asked about the Sustainable Community Strategy (SCS) and delay to publication of the refreshed version, the LSP Chair said the overall vision within the existing SCS, published 2006 to cover a three-year period, had been determined by consultation with stakeholders and so was ‘owned’ by the City and the community as a whole. There was no ‘veto’ and partnerships were equal. All needed to have input into the agreed vision.

41.6 The refresh of SCS was expected to be published early next year after responses had been assimilated from the current public consultation which ended on 5 October. As before consultation had included the family of 12 partnerships, local authority, public sector organisations and other agencies and stakeholders. A few matters may have a different emphasis to reflect the current consultation. To debate transport issues the Transport Partnership was being reactivated.

41.7 The Local Transport Plan and the Local Development Framework Core Strategy (now open separately for consultation) are policies the responsibility of, and owned by, the local authority.

41.8 Delay to the publication of the SCS refresh (originally targeted for April 2009) was brought about by the development of a model process for community engagement and the agreement of new milestones. This delay was unlikely to cause significant difficulties.

41.9 Replying to questions the LSP Chair said awareness of its work in the wider community was unsurprisingly low and partnerships and the local authority could do more to attract greater public involvement. The Local Authority was the main source of funding into the LSP, together with the PCT but there were other considerable resource implications such as ‘in kind’ support from the business sector.

41.10 Around ¾ of  the ‘what we intend to do’ in the current Strategy are complete or are work in progress. The remainder of the intentions should not be not lost without justification; this could be questioned by overview and scrutiny and would be externally reviewed within the CAA.

41.11 It was important that public sector organisations play a full part in partnerships’ discussions; one of the roles of the LSP is to ensure that all the thematic partnerships work effectively.

41.12 The Chairman thanked Mr French for answering Members’ questions. Councillor Mitchell said that working closely together would help progress partnership working and avoid unnecessary duplication.

41.13 RESOLVED 1) that Members note the information within Appendix 1 (background to the LSP and Sustainable Community Strategy) and Appendix 2 (agreed recommendations to help develop the role of scrutiny within the LSP)

2) that Members agree to submit comments made in relation to the Sustainable Community Strategy consultation as outlined in Appendix 3.