Agenda and minutes

Apologies had been received from Ansar Ali – Cambridgeshire Police Authority.

At this point Members must declare whether they have an interest, whether personal or prejudicial, in any of the items on the agenda. Members must also declare if they are subject to their party group whip in relation to any items under consideration.

            Declarations of interest were received from Councillor Fox who declared a personal interest in that he was a member of Peterborough Council of Voluntary Services.

The minutes of the Strong and Supportive Communities Scrutiny Committee meeting held on 15 June 2011 were approved as an accurate record.

The decision notice for each decision will bear the date on which it is published and will specify that the decision may then be implemented on the expiry of 3 working days after the publication of the decision (not including the date of publication), unless a request for call-in of the decision is received from any two Members of a Scrutiny Committee or Scrutiny Commissions.  If a request for call-in of a decision is received, implementation of the decision remains suspended for consideration by the relevant Scrutiny Committee or Commission.

There were no requests for Call-in to consider.

The report informed the Committee of the development of the Single Delivery Plan (SDP) and focussed on areas within the SDP that fell within the remit of the Committee:

• Programme 5: Empowering People and Creating Cohesive Communities
  • Building voluntary and community sector capacity to deliver local services – Project Lead, Leonie McCarthy, Social Inclusion Manager
  • Delivering the localism agenda - Project Lead, Leonie McCarthy, Social Inclusion Manager
  • Tackling the causes of hate crime and community tension – Project Lead, MJ Ladha, Director, Peterborough Racial Equality Council
• Programme 6: Reducing Crime and Tackling Antisocial Behaviour – Programme Lead, Gary Goose, Community Safety Strategic Manager

and

• Programme 1, Project 4: Creating a Safe, Clean and Vibrant City Centre
• Programme 7, Project 27: Citizen Power Programme (this will be presented to the committee in September)

The development of the SDP was overseen and co-ordinated by the Greater Peterborough Partnership (GPP). The GPP were Peterborough’s Local Strategic Partnership, and was the body that ‘united representatives from the public, private, faith, community and voluntary sectors to work collectively together towards the vision and priorities of the Sustainable Community Strategy’.  The SDP enabled agencies responsible for developing and delivering services in Peterborough to work together more collaboratively, through ‘whole systems thinking’ approaches.  Each programme had a programme lead and each project would be managed through the council’s project reporting system Verto.  Performance management of the SDP would focus on delivery and outcomes.  Members were informed about a new system for collecting data called the Neighbourhood Window which was a visual piece of software capable of overlaying several sources of data.  It would become a single place where intelligence and data would be held about the city to enable better decision making.

Observations and questions were raised around the following areas:

·         Most people still feared crime even though crime was being reduced.  How can this perception be changed?  It was difficult to change people’s perception.  Fear was often based around anti-social behaviour in neighbourhoods which suffered from graffiti, litter and damage. Cleaning up these areas would influence a change in perception.

·         Data shown in the Safer Peterborough Partnership Plan shows a figure of 4713 crimes recorded in the Central Ward. This data could alarm people and increase the fear of crime.  Did this figure include the City Centre?  Would it be possible to breakdown the figure to show a separation of Central Ward and the City Centre?   A breakdown between the Central Ward and the City Centre could be provided in future reporting to this Committee.

·         If you were looking to do things differently to make a change what would you not want to do again going forward?  What lessons have been learnt?  A major lesson learnt would be to ensure that any positive changes made today would not impact negatively on work done in the future.  There was a need for agencies to work together in a collaboratively way to ensure that any decisions made in one agency did not have  ...  view the full minutes text for item 5.

The report informed the Committee on the progress made in respect of the recommendations of the Scrutiny Review Group in relation to Neighbourhood Councils following Cabinet decisions in February and March 2011, and decisions at Annual Council in May 2011.  In attendance were two Neighbourhood Managers who gave their perspective of how the delivery of Neighbourhood Committees had changed since the recommendations had been  approved.  Both reported a positive change for urban and rural Neighbourhood Committees and advised that the recommendations were starting to be embedded.  There had also been a notable improvement in buy in to the concept of Neighbourhood Committees from all parties involved. Numbers of people in attendance at meetings were slowly starting to increase and positive feedback was being received.  There was a lot more work to do but the changes were starting to make a difference.

 Observations and questions were raised around the following areas:

·         Can you update the Committee on progress with regard to the recommendation on the disaggregation of budgets?  The principle of delegating mainstream revenue budgets had been agreed corporately.  There would be a pilot using part of the highways budget disaggregated down to Neighbourhood Committees level later this year.  There was also work being done on the Enterprise Contract to see which parts of the budget could be disaggregated down to Neighbourhood Committees.

·         What progress has been made with regard to creating a single, seamless approach to neighbourhood engagement?   Agreement had been obtained from the police to pilot a session where the Neighbourhood Police Panel and Neighbourhood Committee would meet at the same venue on the same evening

·         What progress had been made on organising a Neighbourhood Committee locality tour?   Ward tours were scheduled to commence in the autumn following the development of the Community Action Plans.

·         What progress had been made regarding the creation of a lead officer role within the Neighbourhoods division?   The job description was being evaluated and there had also been ongoing discussions regarding additional support around this role.  Any developments with regard to this would be brought before the Committee at a later date when further detail had been finalised.

·         Had members of the Corporate Management Team (CMT) been identified to champion each Neighbourhood Committee?   CMT members had been identified for each committee and a Head of Service would also be allocated to each committee.

·         Councillor Burton informed Members that the Neighbourhood Council Review Group would reconvene in September to determine new terms of reference for the group going forward.  Councillor Casey was invited to join the group.

·         Some members were concerned that the Neighbourhood Committee meetings might become too lengthy if holding the Ward Forums, Neighbourhood Police Panels and Neighbourhood Committee on the same evening.  People would be able to attend which part of the meeting they were interested in and would not have to attend the whole evening. The ward forum would be an informal meeting place to come and talk to ward councillors and officers about issues and concerns in  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6.

The Committee received the latest version of the Council’s Forward Plan, containing key decisions that the Leader of the Council anticipated the Cabinet or individual Cabinet Members would make during the course of the following four months.  Members were invited to comment on the Plan and, where appropriate, identify any relevant areas for inclusion in the Committee’s work programme. 

ACTION AGREED

The Committee noted the Forward Plan and agreed that there were no items for further consideration.

Members considered the Committee’s Work Programme for 2011/12 and discussed possible items for inclusion.

The Senior Governance Officer advised the Committee that items listed on the work programme covering Grass Verge Parking and Dog Control Orders would fall within the remit of the Environment Capital Committee as they were enforcement issues.

ACTION AGREED

To confirm the work programme for 2011/12.

Wednesday 14 September 2011

Wednesday 14 September 2011