Agenda item

            (Mrs. S. Wylie, Director of Health and Environmental Services, attended in connection with this item.)

            The Committee was reminded that, at its meeting on 23rd January, 2009, it had agreed to set up new joint working arrangements with the Public Health Agency and the Belfast Health and Social Care Trust.  The purpose of that was to create a mechanism to better tackle the health inequalities that existed across the City, which was one of the priorities that the Council had set within its Corporate Plan.  Part of those joint working arrangements involved the establishment of a new unit, the Belfast Health Development Unit, which had been launched by the Minister for Health, Social Services and Public Safety in March, 2010.  That new unit incorporated staff from the Council, the Public Health Agency and the Belfast Trust.  The Unit had developed a joined-up action plan across the three agencies to address the priority health problems facing the people of Belfast.

            The Director of Health and Environmental Services explained that the next step in delivering joined-up planning and action was to set up a new Strategic Partnership for Health and Wellbeing in order to:

·         Support a Citywide collaborative approach across sectors to better address the inequalities and health and wellbeing challenges faced within Belfast; and

·         Set the strategic direction for health and wellbeing improvement in Belfast, through the development of agreed priorities for the City and the alignment of corporate plans and resources of the key service providers.

            She reminded the Members that the Council had been successful in being awarded a contract by the BIG Lottery to deliver a community planning pilot.  As a result of this the Committee had established a Cross-Party Reference Group on Community Planning, which had been meeting for the previous two months and included two Members from each of the Party Groupings on the Council.  That Group had agreed that the pilot should focus on health as a theme and it would specifically test how to enable the voluntary and community sector to influence the plans and resources of key statutory agencies.

            The new Belfast Strategic Partnership for health and wellbeing would be made up of representatives from the following sectors:

·         Statutory sector, such as the Council, the Public Health Agency, the Belfast Health and Social Services Trust, the Northern Ireland Housing Executive, the Police Service of Northern Ireland and the Education sector;

·         Private sector;

·         Community and voluntary sector, including representation from the five Belfast Area Partnership Boards and community nominees put forward at a recent community sector workshop; and

·         Local Elected Members.

            That Partnership would set the health and wellbeing priorities for the City in the form of a Citywide plan and would be supported by the Belfast Health Development Unit.  The first meeting was scheduled to be held at 11.00 a.m. on 8th February in the Group Space, Ulster Hall.  It would meet approximately four times a year.

            Accordingly, it was recommended that each of the Party Groupings on the Council nominate a Member to sit on the Partnership and, in order to maintain coherence across activities, the nominee should also be a current representative on the Cross-Party Reference Group on Community Planning.

            The Committee adopted the recommendation.