Agenda and minutes

There were no Declarations of Interest made.

There were no questions from members of the public of the press.

Consideration was given to a report presented by Kevin Robinson, Education Consultant, and Tom Kelly, Director of Inclusion, Voice and Influence, which detailed how the School and Inspections Act 2006 introduced a duty for schools to promote Community Cohesion. This duty came into force in September, 2007 and would be inspected by Ofsted from September, 2008. The report outlined the guidance that schools have received to support this duty and identified the expected outcomes arising from this duty.

The duty to promote community cohesion built on the role of schools to deliver a curriculum that promoted the spiritual, moral, cultural, and physical development of pupils at the school and of society.  The report provided further information on community cohesion, what this meant and how a cohesive community was recognised.

Developing a sense of belonging was identified as being where people know what everyone expected of them and what they could expect in turn.

Schools’ role was crucial. By creating opportunities for pupils’ achievement and enabling every child and young person to achieve their potential, schools made a significant contribution to long term community cohesion.

All schools, whatever the mix of pupils they served, were responsible for equipping those pupils to live and thrive alongside people from many different backgrounds.  For some schools with diverse pupil populations, existing activities and work aimed at supporting pupils from different ethnic or socioeconomic backgrounds to learn with, from and about each other, would already be contributing towards community cohesion. For other schools where the pupil population was less diverse or predominantly of one socioeconomic, ethnic, religious or non-religious background,more will need to be done to provide opportunities for interaction between children and young people from different backgrounds.

Just as each school was different, each school would make an important, but different contribution to community cohesion. Each would, therefore, need to develop an approach reflecting:-

·               The nature of the school’s population.

·               The location of the school – for instance whether it serves a rural or urban area and the level of ethnic, socio-economic or religious or non-religious diversity in that area.

In the light of the new duty all schools would find it useful to consider how different aspects of their work already support integration and community cohesion; to take stock of what had worked so far, for them and for other schools; and consider where there may be scope to improve their existing work through a more explicit focus on the impact of their activities on community cohesion and this could be grouped into three areas.

To assist the Scrutiny Panel in understanding about the duty to promote Community Cohesion, Kevin Robinson gave a presentation on the above issue, which drew specific attention to:-

·              Social background.

·              Legal background.

·              Dimensions of community.

·              Meaning of Community Cohesion.

·              Schools contribution to community cohesion.

·              Examples of promoting community cohesion in Rotherham.

·              Case Studies.

·              What to do now.

A discussion and a question and answer sessions ensued and the following issues were raised and clarified:-

-                 Production  ...  view the full minutes text for item 65.

Consideration was given to a report presented by Ceri Williams, Internal Communications Officer, which outlined a number of measures currently in place to promote effective clear communications and the use of plain English across the Authority, and puts forward recommendations to further develop the approach in line with best practice.

There were a number of measures currently in place to promote effective clear communications, to endorse the use of plain English and to counter the use of inappropriate “jargon” by Council officers,

The Crystal Mark was introduced in 1990 as the Campaign’s official Seal of Approval and was now established as the standard for organisations to strive for in producing public information.

In January, 2007, a report on the Plain English Campaign’s Crystal Mark was presented to the Joint Meeting of the Cabinet Member for Neighbourhoods and Environment and Development Services by the Head of Corporate Communications.  This followed a Crystal Mark pilot in Licensing, which had received very positive responses from hackney carriage and taxi license applications who had received the forms subject to the Crystal Mark review. At that time, the Head of Corporate Communications and Marketing outlined the various options available for funding access to Crystal Mark, which included corporate membership (£6,000 plus VAT per year, including training for 20 members of staff) and membership for individual Strategic Directorates (£2,000 plus VAT per annum for the first year, and £1,000 per year after that, inclusive of training for one person). Alternatively it was possible to pay for the Crystal Mark review of individual documents.

A discussion subsequently took place at a Service Directors meeting to determine if any other Council initiative had been piloted in a Directorate, but no further action was taken at that stage.

A more detailed audit of the current position may be helpful, to ensure the Authority was obtaining maximum value for money for any existing connections with the Plain English Campaign and to assess the benefits and budgetary implications of any further involvement.  It was suggested that this include consultation with Members.

The Scrutiny Panel questioned how seriously recommendations were taken to address this issue and welcomed an audit of the current position.

Ceri Williams reported on her own role as Internal Communications Officer in offering advice, guidance and practical support to Members and officers about effective communication tools and techniques, which also involves proofreading documents, to translate them into plain English and/or to ensure that the language and tone was appropriate for the audience and subject matter.

The Scrutiny Panel noted that documents accessed by the general public in vast numbers had been vetted to ensure that the content was clearly understood.  It was also suggested that the Council's Plain English Guidance be promoted further and ensure that it was embedded as part of the induction process.

It was also proposed that some form of Scrutiny Review be undertaken on the use of plain English and the offer by the Internal Communications Officer to assist in further training for Members be  ...  view the full minutes text for item 66.

Consideration was given to a report presented by Jan Leyland, Neighbourhood Partnerships Manager, which provided an update on the progress to date in delivering against Our Futures 3 (OF3) - Objective No. 10: Review, Develop and Implement Multi-Agency Neighbourhood Charters tailored to meet individual Area Assemblies.

Following consideration of the Area Assemblies’ future role and functions in 2006 the Council made a decision to: “move away from being simple consultation and information sharing, towards area based co-ordination and delivery of service improvements and regeneration activities.  Neighbourhood Charters were a key tool in this new way of working.

The importance of these standards to the community may differ though from one area to another. As a result, each of the seven Area Assemblies were asked to consider which of the core service standards would be a priority for their Assembly, to be monitored and published in a local Neighbourhood Charter.

The Area Partnership Managers (APM) were provided with 61 core service standards.  Neighbourhood Charters have now been draft printed tailored to meet individual Area Assemblies. The Charters were based on the priority service standards chosen by the Co-ordinating Groups.

Performance data was obtained for a majority of the standards for the periods from April, 2006 to March, 2007 and April to September, 2007. Area Assembly Co-ordinating Groups received a report showing performance against their chosen priority service standards and reports would also be submitted to public meetings of each Area Assembly.

 In terms of developing Charters during 2008/09 and beyond, a Working Group had been established comprising local statutory and voluntary partners as well as ENCAMS, a national body responsible for running the ‘Keep Britain Tidy’ campaign and supporting pathfinders and local authorities to develop Neighbourhood Charters.  The Working Group would explore further possibilities.

The first meeting of the Working Group was held on Monday, 21st January, 2008 and agreed that Charters needed to be developed at different levels either at the borough level in line with the Joint Customer Service Centres coming on stream - Maltby in July, 2008, and Aston and Rawmarsh in 2009 and in neighbourhoods where there was a community infrastructure and demand for this type of initiative e.g. Eastwood and Springwell Gardens Neighbourhood Governance pilot.

The Scrutiny Panel asked for clarification into the aims and objectives of neighbourhood charters and an explanation on how they were used as a baseline for service providers to measure standards of services to ensure they were being delivered effectively was provided.

The priorities contained within the neighbourhood charters would evolve over time once community awareness of service standards was increased.  Ways of improving neighbourhood charter development into the future had been identified.

The Scrutiny Panel also requested information on how the core service standard targets and response times were set and community engagement in ensuring services were adequately resourced.

Resolved:-  (1)  That the progress to date be noted.

(2)  That a report on progress of the Neighbourhood Charters be submitted to this Scrutiny Panel on an annual  ...  view the full minutes text for item 67.

Consideration was given to a report presented by Jan Leyland, Neighbourhood Partnership Manager, which provided Members with an update on the second and third quarter progress of each of the seven Area Assembly Area Plans.

The engagement and Involvement of the Community was vital in ensuring the success of the Council’s Corporate Plan, Rotherham Partnerships Community Strategy, the Local Area Agreement and the Neighbourhood Renewal Strategy. As part of a longer term strategy to improve democratic decision making across the borough, a new way of working whereby the delivery of Neighbourhood Management would relate to local issues and be reflected in an Area Plan.

The role of the Area Plan had been developed with the aim of bringing together key priorities for the local area including major issues, priorities and actions identified by local communities across each Area Assembly. This meant that the Area Co-ordinating Group, led by the Area Assembly Chair and Area Partnership Managers took ownership of the plan and put in place the mechanisms to really ‘get things done’, meaning clearly visible outcomes for the local community.

This provided customers with the knowledge that the Council used feedback to improve local services. Feedback from the community was required to identify community priorities to feed into the plans through:-

·             Community consultation and community planning activities.

·             Area Assembly consultation.

·             Area based initiatives like the Safer Neighbourhood Teams.

·             Information from partner agencies and the voluntary sector.

The current Area Plans were divided into the five over-arching themes identified in the Community Strategy document and each of the seven Area Plans were reflective of the specific issues raised by local communities.

Consultation on the Area Plans identified a number of borough wide priorities against the Community Strategy Themes.

Area Partnership Managers measured the performance against actions in the Area Plans and reported this performance on a quarterly basis to each Area Assembly.  The Performance Management of each Area Plan was undertaken by the Co-ordinating Groups who received a report from the Area Partnership Manager outlining progress on actions, achievements and emerging barriers to success along with action plans for poor performance and /or remedial actions.

All local priorities, detailed in the Area Plans and referred to in the report, provided details of progress against top community priorities in each Area Assembly.  Each area of progress was highlighted using the traffic light reporting system.

Councillor Johnston, Chair of Rotherham North Area Assembly, was pleased to report on the positive progress of their Area Plan, with the only area “off target” relating to transport as a result of action beyond the Council’s and other partners’ control.

The Scrutiny Panel asked various questions about the borough wide priorities against the Community Strategy themes and received clarification relating to:-

·              Working more closely with Rotherham’s Parish Councils.

·              Links between the targets in the Area Plans and the Local Area Agreement.

·              What Area Plans could do about gaps in services.

·              How Area Assemblies collected local performance information.

·              How Area Plans supported funding allocation.

·              Achievement  ...  view the full minutes text for item 68.

Consideration was given to a report presented by Phil Howe, Human Resources Manager, which detailed the quarter three performance report for performance of Corporate Best Value Performance Indicators (Corporate Health Indicators) and Local Performance Indicators monitored and reported on by the Chief Executive’s Directorate.

Overall there were eight measurements against six national Best Value Performance Indicators (BVPIs) which the Chief Executive’s Directorate was charged with reporting on (BVPI 11 had three targets to meet), which were set out in detail in the report.

Discrepancies between targets and actual performance were due to the calculation methodology and ongoing changes in the establishment.

Of the eight measurements, five were categorised as green stars, and three as a red triangle (categorisation in accordance with performance plus). It should be noted that categorisation was based on comparisons between Quarter 3 actual figures and the end of year target.

The report also provided details of local performance indicators measured and reported on by Strategic HR.  Of the eight indicators, two were status red - M3 Managers (total 168) attending management development centers and response to Reach-in survey.

As at Quarter 1 the Legal and Democratic Services Local Performance Indicator suite was under revision with a view to being rationalised. The revised suite, including performance information for Quarters 1 and 2 and 3 was provided as part of the report.  As at Quarter 3 all eleven indicators were status green.

A discussion and a question and answer session ensued, which covered the nationally-set Best Value Performance Indicators together with the eight local performance indicators, and the following issues were raised and clarified:-

·              Early retirement for teachers, offset by the numbers of newly qualified teachers.

·              Positive encouragement of people with disabilities to obtain employment with the Council.

·              Performance calculations and measurements.

·              Low percentage of BVPI17a – BME employees.

·              Actions to improve BVPI16a – employees with a disability.

·              Legal Services LPI targets and their categorisation.

·              Categories of disability and links with the voluntary sector towards employment.

Resolved:-  (1)  That the performance of these key Corporate Best Value Performance Indicators and Local Performance Indicators be noted.

(2)  That the Quarter 4 be submitted to this Scrutiny Panel in April, 2008.

Resolved:-  That the minutes of the meeting of the Democratic Renewal Scrutiny Panel held on 17^th January, 2008 be approved as a correct record for signature by the Chairman.

The Scrutiny Panel noted the minutes of the meeting of the Performance and Scrutiny Overview Committee held on 19^th December, 2007, 18^th January and 1^st February, 2008.

The Scrutiny Panel noted the minutes of the meeting of the New Arrivals Working Party held on 30^th January, 2008.