Agenda item

            The Committee was reminded that, at its meeting on 13th August, it had agreed that a report be submitted outlining the timetable for the completion of the Action Plan.  Accordingly, the Director submitted the undernoted report:

 

“Relevant Background Information

 

      The Strategic Neighbourhood Action Programme was established in April 2007 to develop the necessary policies and procedures to enable BCC to more accurately target its service delivery within well-defined geographical areas across the city, in other words, ‘City Places’.

 

      Over the past 17 months the SNAP team has undertaken work to design and develop a Local Area Working Framework for the Council. Key achievements include the following:-

 

·         Neighbourhood Geography designed and approved by Council. 21 City Places have been created as a basis for Local Area Working activity.

 

·         Public Consultation held to gain views on Council’s plans for Local Area Working, The over-arching conclusion from this consultation was that the local area working approach generally makes sense as issues/needs vary across the city and that it fits in with community planning.

 

·         Information and Research undertaken to build up local knowledge at smaller geographical areas e.g. development of citystats, area profiles, neighbourhood services knowledge base, internal service delivery audit.

 

·         Undertook significant awareness raising amongst staff and external organisations.

 

·         Neighbourhood Renewal Co-ordination for Council which includes approval for 11 out of 12 Action Plans for the areas through the Council process, examination of implications for BCC, co-ordinating Officer participation and providing a support framework to address issues.

 

·         Developed a corporate local area working framework model which is underpinned by the Academy for Sustainable Communities Wheel.

 

·         Embedded the need to implement Local Area Working within the Council’s Corporate Plan which highlights the Council priorities for 2008-2011.

 

      A full analysis of work carried out by the SNAP team was presented at the last meeting of the Development Committee.

 

Key Issues

 

      At the last meeting of the Development Committee, several Members had expressed concern at the length of time which it was taking for SNAP to be implemented. In particular the timescale that had been identified for the full delivery of the action programme would mean that the Review of Public Administration would already be in the process of being implemented. To this end, it was agreed that it would be preferable if the Action Plans were to be completed before the RPA was implemented and that a revised timetable for the completion of SNAP would be submitted to the next meeting of the Committee.

 

      Members will be aware that Council is already working on a range of area based initiatives which involve almost all of our services e.g. Neighbourhood Renewal, Community Safety Partnerships, Renewing the Routes, Strategic Regeneration Frameworks and a number of ad hoc area based projects such as the Upper Springfield Safer Neighbourhoods Forum. However, this is very much carried out on an individual basis due to the absence of a coherent Neighbourhood Support Policy Framework within the Council. The creation and implementation of such a framework is the overarching objective of the SNAP team.

 

      Working effectively at an area level does require corporate co?ordination on planning, resourcing, consultation and engagement, information management and monitoring. These issues are all being examined through the new corporate planning process which will address how the Council delivers services on a functional, thematic and area basis.  Work is about to commence which will assess the organisational implications of implementing a local area working model within Council. This will be particularly significant given the development of the new corporate plan and the recognition of the new neighbourhood convening role of the Council after the RPA. The work of SNAP will be fundamental to informing this process.

 

      Given the issues that have been identified above and the fact that the SNAP team has limited staff resources it is recommended that the implementation of SNAP is rolled out in the following way:

 

·         Put in place an ongoing process to best suit Members to inform and engage with them on the development of SNAP.

 

·         Creation of a local area officer working group as part of the corporate planning process.  October 2008

 

·         Completion & approval of Area Based Profiles for the 21 Areas:  January 2008

 

·         ‘My Neighbourhood Debate’ planning for the 21 Areas which will include the development of a pack of engagement mechanisms.  October 2008 – March 2009

 

·         Launch of the ‘My Neighbourhood’ debate process  April 2009

 

·         21 ‘My Neighbourhood’ debates held across the city to determine citizen priorities for their area. These debates will be Chaired and led by Members.  May 2009 – October 2009

 

·         Development of priority lists for each Area based on the My Neighbourhood debates.  May 2009 – October 2009

 

·         Analysis of priority lists internally to determine what solutions could be provided to address priorities, testing feasibility and determining potential short/medium and long term objectives.  November 2009 – March 2010

 

·         Priority lists for Council services drafted up by the SNAP team and presented to Members for consideration and approval.  April 2010

 

·         Publication of priority lists to the 21 Areas and commence implementation and co-ordination of activities.  May 2010

 

·         Consider the feasibility of developing a ‘challenge fund’ on a North, South, East, West basis which could feed into resource allocation for 2010/11.

 

      The plans that will be prepared for each area will initially be a list of priorities that citizens have identified for their areas and as well as a Council response regarding how we will respond to them.

 

      Given that this is a first attempt at the roll out of the Action Plans it is recommended that the Action Plans will also provide a comprehensive overview the key neighbourhood services that the Council is currently providing in that particular area as well as their priorities identified.  This will also include the integration of the Council’s own actions and commitment to Neighbourhood Renewal within the relevant City Place Action plans where relevant.

 

      This process identified above is a similar approach to how Council is responding to the issues and priorities identified by communities in the Neighbourhood Renewal Action Plans which is also co-ordinated by the SNAP team.

 

      Council has responded to 11 of the 12 Action Plans which have identified 554 actions specifically relating to Council service delivery at a neighbourhood level.  In addition to responding to individual actions we are also using this as an opportunity to inform the Partnerships of the wide range of services and activities that the Council is also delivering within that area.

 

      The recently appointed Neighbourhood Development Officers are now co-ordinating the delivery of the actions within the action plans and working across all departments to ensure delivery.

 

Resource Implications

 

      Human Resources

 

      Co-ordinated by the SNAP team

 

      Financial Resources

 

      Secured through the SNAP team

 

Recommendations

 

·         To note the report

 

·         To approve the timescale for the implementation of SNAP and the key steps highlighted to make that happen

 

Key to Abbreviations

 

NRP    –  Neighbourhood Renewal Partnership

LAW    –  Local Area Working

SNAP  –  Strategic Neighbourhood Action Plan”

 

            After discussion, the Committee adopted the recommendations contained within the foregoing report.