Agenda item

Report from the Strategic Director of Adult Care, Housing and Public Health.

Recommendation:

That Cabinet approve the response to the recommendations, as detailed in Appendix 1, and note the report.

Consideration was given to the report which provided Cabinet’s response to the findings and recommendations of the Scrutiny Review – OSMB Children’s Commissioner’s Takeover Challenge – Health and Wellbeing. The Takeover Challenge took place on 17 October 2024 and the recommendations were formed by a review group consisting of members of Overview and Scrutiny and members of the Youth Cabinet. These recommendations were presented to Cabinet on 14 January 2025 and Cabinet agreed to provide a response.

The recommendations were set out in section 2.1 of the report and related to Vaping, Mental Health, Physical Activity and Healthy Eating. 12 of the recommendations had been accepted and Appendix 1 set out further detail on how the recommendations had been or would be actioned. Where the recommendations were made for schools, the Council would only be able to accept the recommendation on behalf of maintained schools.

Recommendation 5 was that consideration be given to how the provision of a

dedicated youth space for young people could be achieved, for example, a

development of a space similar to the Barnsley Youth Zone. This would require significant capital and revenue investment that was beyond the Council’s capabilities at present. It would also mean that all the Council’s resource was centred in one area and not distributed across the Borough. Therefore, this recommendation was not accepted at this time.

Members of the Children and Young People’s Partnership Board had suggested they would like to support the development of a strategy creating

and communicating ‘youth zones’ for young people across the Borough,

including dedicated digital spaces in libraries, youth clubs and ‘safe spots’. These requests would be presented to the Rotherham Together Partnership for consideration and allocation to relevant agencies to progress.

The Chair of the Overview and Scrutiny Management Board was pleased that the vast majority of recommendations had been accepted and placed on record his thanks to the Youth Cabinet for their work.

Resolved:

That Cabinet approve the response to the recommendations, as detailed in Appendix 1, and note the report.