Agenda item

To consider the report and presentation which indicate progress on the delivery of the Thriving Neighbourhoods Strategy and the Neighbourhood Working model.

At the Chair’s invitation, Martin Hughes, Head of Neighbourhoods, introduced the item, and commented that members lived the Thriving Neighbourhoods Strategy (Strategy) in their day-to-day work representing their constituents and worked to deliver it via their ward plans and priorities.

The Strategy had initially been approved in 2018 and was updated and refreshed in 2022. The Strategy was due to be refreshed and renewed again in 2026 and the Head of Neighbourhoods confirmed that discussions were taking place with the Leader of the Council and the Chief Executive about how to progress with a new strategy.

The Strategy played a key part in the delivery of the strategic outcomes under the Council Plan but particularly, that “places are thriving, safe and clean”. The Head of Neighbourhoods expressed pride in the collaborative work of the Council, the Neighbourhoods Teams and ward members during the lifetime of the Strategy and referred to the Local Government Association (LGA) Peer Review in 2023, which had praised the exemplary approach of the Council to community engagement. The success of this model was also due to the important work that wider services across the Council had provided to support delivery of local ward priorities.

The Head of Neighbourhoods took members through the update presentation, highlighting the following points, which demonstrated the breadth and depth of support for members on the neighbourhood working model:-

·         Member development and support - The Neighbourhoods Team had facilitated up to 250 ward briefings over the 2024-25 municipal year. This period also covered the induction programme delivered to newly elected members after the May 2024 local elections, which helped to provide members with some knowledge and background to their wards. The member development programme was continually provided by the Member Support team within Democratic Services.

·         Ward priorities and plans - A summary of the priorities and plans for all wards was provided at Appendix 3 of the Report. The Head of Neighbourhoods confirmed that during spring/summer 2026, the Neighbourhoods Team would be speaking to all members about updating and refreshing their ward priorities, as they head into the second half of their four-year term of office. Ward data, advice and input from Council services and external partners, along with local community intelligence, would be used to develop and update ward priorities.

·         Ward budgets - At the beginning of 2024, over £1 million pounds had been available for projects, initiatives, activities and enhanced services to tackle ward priorities. In the financial year 2024-25, £275,116 of this was spent, which was less than when last reported. This was largely explained by the fact that it been the first year of members’ four-year term office where they had been settling into their roles. The amount of spend was expected to increase over subsequent years as ward projects, services and activities continued to develop. £62,000 had been allocated to some 160 community groups within the Voluntary & Community Sector across the borough. The remaining budget from that initial £1 million would be carried over into the 2025-26 financial year.

·         Community engagement – Work would continue on refreshing and updating individual ward web pages. The Neighbourhoods landing page on the Council website had received 4,826 unique views. There had been a small increase in subscribers to ward eBulletins and the engagement rate (measured via clicks on the links) for eBulletins was high, at 76%. Work was being carried out by the Communications Team to check the continued accuracy of these subscriptions and also, to produce a survey of readership to improve the content and accessibility of the eBulletins.

·         Support for community organisations – Figures around the support provided for community groups via advice, signposting, support for events and direct funding for projects from ward budgets were provided. The important work of the Parish Council & Neighbourhoods Liaison Officer was also highlighted, a role unique to Rotherham. Work had been ongoing with the 31 Parish Councils over the last 12-18 months to update the joint working agreements between them and the Council.

·         Town centre working – The Neighbourhoods Team had a responsibility to promote placemaking in the town centre and to bring all key stakeholders together and this work was primarily driven by the Town Centre Community Coordinator. The most demanding areas of focus were currently, anti-social behaviour and community safety. The Town Centre Community Coordinator had been working closely with the newly launched Street Safe Team around the town centre and the principal towns. The Town Centre Strategic Group was also working with officers in Regeneration & Environment on the development of a new Town Centre Action Plan and with regard to the £20 million of funding coming to the town centre and surrounding neighbourhoods under the government’s Pride in Place scheme. Over the last 12 months, consultation had taken place with the relevant local communities. The new Neighbourhoods Team would also work closely with the Neighbourhood Board that would oversee delivery of the Pride in Place programme.

·         Looking forward – Out of the 2023 LGA peer review, came a recommendation to continue to build on the neighbourhood working model and develop a clear and shared understanding of integrated working across the public sector. In response to that, the Council had set up a Locality Working Board, with representation from senior council officers, South Yorkshire Police and the NHS. This board had overseen the strengthening of the North, Central and South Locality Managers Groups who were now responsible for the delivery of the Selective Licencing Neighbourhood Development & Improvement plans. The board would also be involved in the National Neighbourhood Health Implementation Programme, where Rotherham would be part of a national change programme aiming to deliver NHS services closer to communities. With the support of the Locality Working Board, a programme of training on strengths-based working had been delivered to officers and members, to strengthen methods of consultation and community engagement and the co-production of services.

The Chair invited members of IPSC to raise questions and queries on the Thriving Neighbourhoods Annual Report 2024-25, and in the ensuing question and answer session the following points were raised:-

Councillor Thorp asked a question around the Neighbourhood Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) monies of £120,000 that had been received in Sitwell ward. This had been shared amongst the entire ward, part of which was parished, even though the development the CIL money was attached to was outside of the parished area. Councillor Thorp understood that if the CIL money had been in relation to an area within a parish boundary, the Parish Council would be entitled to keep the entire sum but asked for confirmation of this.

In response, the Head of Neighbourhoods confirmed that this was correct, and a Parish Council was legally allowed for to retain CIL monies paid to it in relation to a development within the parish boundary, without sharing it amongst the wider ward community. In this instance, members could choose to approach the Parish Council to discuss distribution of the funds.

Councillor Tinsley queried whether the figure quoted in Appendix 2 on page 76 of the Agenda Pack – “Number of Parish Council Emergency Plans completed – 0” was correct or whether they had just not been recorded. Councillor Tinsley sought reassurance that Parish Councils were taking steps to consider emergency plans, particularly in light of the earlier discussions around flooding. The Head of Neighbourhoods explained that work was ongoing by the Parish Council & Neighbourhoods Liaison Officer to encourage Parish Councils to complete their Emergency Plans. Councillor Tinsley requested that service investigate this and update IPSC on how many had been completed. 

In a supplementary question, Councillor Tinsley enquired whether Parish Clerks had access to a casework system, similar to borough Councillors, which would help them to submit issues to the Council. The Head of Neighbourhoods confirmed that the Parish Council & Neighbourhoods Liaison Officer facilitated regular meetings with Parish Clerks to discuss cross-cutting issues and to signpost Parish Clerks to the correct services and contacts. It was confirmed that there were no current plans to provide a casework-type system for Parish Clerks.

The Chair questioned whether parish liaison was promoted enough across the Council and commented that often, Parish Clerks would complain that they had raised issues with the relevant services and not heard anything back. Phillip Horsfield, the Service Director of Legal, Elections and Registration Services (Service Director) responded and was of the view that the parish liaison role was taken seriously across the Council and commented that the kind of access that members received to services within the Council could not be replicated for Parish Councillors or Clerks. However, there were systems in place that worked for Parish Clerks, although there was always room for improvements. Parish Clerks should be encouraged to report any issues to the Council via the usual channels and where issues were known, these could also be reported to the Parish Council & Neighbourhoods Liaison Officer.

Councillor Jones expressed some frustration towards the neighbourhood working model, particularly regarding increased restrictions on how monies could be spent and the length of time it took to deliver some projects. Councillor Jones felt that the capital to Community Leadership Fund (CLF) ratio was unbalanced as the CLF could be spent multiple times over with the number of requests received for use of it, whereas capital monies were harder to spend. Councillor Jones also felt that it was difficult to spend CIL monies where desired as they were restricted to use for capital only projects. Councillor Jones commented that projects that were put forward often came from just one councillor rather than coming from an open forum and that, in their view, the model had actually reduced the influence of the public on where ward monies were spent.

In response, the Service Director commented that as with most council budgets, there would always be more demand on funding than monies available. How CIL funding was applied was fixed by legislation. With regard to broadening engagement with the public on the application of funds to projects, the Service Director confirmed that suggestions for improvements in this area would always be welcomed but stressed that the Council continued to be held as an exemplary model in its work in facilitating ward members to be community leaders.

The Head of Neighbourhoods added that the lower spend in capital reported in 2024-25 was largely due to members getting acquainted with their wards and identifying their priorities in their first year of office. Members were encouraged to identify any potential large capital spends early in their term so that this spend could be allocated across the four years.

Councillor Jones further commented that the casework element of an elected members’ role had increased significantly in recent years, which in their view, was partly down to the fact that the public has difficulty in contacting the correct service at the Council. Councillor Jones welcomed the move to having one council delivery plan per ward, which would help to bring the myriad of services together.

In response, the Service Director mentioned a recent Radio 4 programme that had discussed the fact that the casework load for elected members had increased exponentially in recent years, which confirmed that this was a national issue. The Service Director agreed that members of the public could not be expected to know exactly which part of the Council their queries should be directed to and commented that the Council was looking to make improvements in the area of customer services, to design dashboards and systems where queries could be directed and responded to more quickly.

The Head of Neighbourhoods stressed that the individual ward plans would be used as the driver to pull together the relevant services at the Council to make sure that they were integrated to tackle identified ward priorities. This, in turn, would help residents and community organisations to understand who best to approach on certain issues.

Councillor Allen confirmed their support for Neighbourhood Working but had a number of queries on the report, which they emphasised, were asked from the standpoint as a “critical friend”. Initially, Councillor Allen asked why of the 11 performance indicators around community engagement at page 76 of the Agenda Pack, all but 2 of them had a downward trajectory? The Head of Neighbourhoods responded, commenting that these figures were again, likely to be due to the report covering the first year of members’ four-year terms and that there would hopefully be an upward trajectory in future years.

Councillor Allen referred to paragraph 2.10 on page 53 of the Agenda Pack, where it was mentioned that ward plans could inform resource allocation. Councillor Allen queried whether the Council would ever get to a stage, with neighbourhood working. where whole budgets could be presented to services on a neighbourhood basis rather than piecemeal?

The Service Director responded and commented that as part of the ongoing work on better collation and analysis of data by the Council, it was possible that in future, the Council could be better able to identify how resources should be targeted and spent in wards. This would be key part of the role of the new Executive Director of Policy, Strategy and Engagement post.

Councillor Allen drew attention to the Risks & Mitigation referred to at page 62 of the Agenda Pack and the commentary within the Risk Register that members themselves were considered a risk to delivery of the Neighbourhood Strategy. Councillor Allen asked that it be noted against this risk that the fact that there had been a number of new elected members in that reporting year, was a mitigating factor.

In a further question, Councillor Allen asked if it would be possible for the work of the Town Centre Strategic Group (chaired by the Executive Director of Regeneration & Environment) and the Town Centre Operational Group (chaired by the Head of Neighbourhoods) to be brought to IPSC for regular updates. Councillor Allen suggested updates on a quarterly basis, but the Service Director countered this and felt that quarterly updates would provide too much granular, operational detail, and suggested that it would be more appropriate for updates to be brought to IPSC on a six-monthly basis. It was agreed that this would form a recommendation from the meeting.

In a final comment, Councillor Allen noted the amount of technical information and figures provided within the report but felt that more could have been made of the impact of neighbourhood working. Councillor Allen suggested that service should create an accessible, easy to read summary of the impact of Neighbourhood Working on an annual basis, for public distribution. The Head of Neighbourhoods confirmed that service would look to produce this, and it was agreed that this would form a recommendation from the meeting.

Councillor Tinsley enquired whether any non-digital updates on neighbourhood working were available for distribution for those people who were not online. The Head of Neighbourhoods confirmed that there was a Neighbourhoods Communications Plan, which ensured that hard copies of documents were always available in traditional media formats to those without access to the internet. Each ward had the opportunity to produce bi-annual newsletters which could be distributed to those who required paper copies. Councillor Tinsley asked whether service had the capacity to support the production of these posters and leaflets and the Head of Neighbourhoods commented that this had been flagged as a potential concern. Work had been done on creating a suite of templates to make it easier for Neighbourhood officers to produce these documents.

Councillor Thorp raised a concern about the high costs that had been quoted for certain works within their ward and asked how the Council ensured that prices quoted were accurate and reasonable. The Service Director responded by assuring Councillor Thorp that the Council was internally robust in checking that it obtained value for money for services it contracted. The Service Director encouraged members to escalate any issues relating to the cost of projects, to the relevant Executive Director or Service Director in order that they could investigate on members’ behalf.

The Chair enquired about the timescales for the new Strategy, given the delays experienced due to the recruitment of an Interim Executive Director of Policy Strategy and Engagement. The Head of Neighbourhoods confirmed that as this post had been filled, service would be working towards presenting the new Strategy to Cabinet in June and would look to have conversations with members about the content of the new Strategy, prior to this.

The Chair thanked officers for their input and members for the questions asked.

Resolved:-

1.    That the contents of the Thriving Neighbourhoods Annual Report 2024-2025 and presentation be noted;

2.    That a regular six-monthly update be provided to IPSC on the work of the Town Centre Strategic Group and the Town Centre Operational Group; and

3.    That service work to create an easy to read, accessible summary document for public distribution, providing an annual summary of the Impact of Neighbourhood Working across the borough.

(Councillor Sheppard declared a personal interest in Minute No. 46 (Thriving Neighbourhoods Annual Report 2024-2025) on the grounds that he was the former Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member with responsibility for this Service within the last 12 months.)