minutes - Wandsworth Borough Council

PAPER ‘A’
WANDSWORTH LOCAL STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIP
Notes of a meeting of the Wandsworth Local Strategic Partnership, held at
Wandsworth Town Hall (Room 140) on Tuesday, 29th March 2011 at 6.30pm.
PRESENT
Wandsworth Borough Council
Councillor E. Lister (Chairman)
Councillor J. Cousins
Councillor Mrs. K. Tracey
Leader, Wandsworth Borough Council
Cabinet Member, Health, Community Safety
and Partnerships
Cabinet Member, Education and Children’s
Services
Statutory agencies
Chief Supt. D. Musker
Ms. H. Al Sharifi
Mr. M. Fisk
Mr. D. Astley
Metropolitan Police Service
NHS Wandsworth PCT
South Thames College
St. George’s Healthcare NHS Trust
Local Partnerships
Ms. G. Ivor
Ms. S. Preece
Rev. J. McKinney
Mr. I. Patel
Balham Town Centre Partnership
Clapham Junction Town Centre Partnership
Roehampton Partnership
Tooting Town Centre Partnership
Voluntary Organisations etc.
Mrs. M. Price
Mr. R. Appleton
Mrs. L. Gillies
Mr. C. Wyatt
Mr. D. Gray
Ms. J. Lofgren
Borough Residents’ Forum
LINk
Older People’s Network
Wandsworth Chamber of Commerce
Wandsworth Environmental Forum
Wandsworth Voluntary Sector Development
Agency
Observers
Mr. M. Gul
Ms. F. Hagger
Mr. J. Owen
Mr. J. Horrocks
Mrs. J. Nwabuaeze
Wandsworth Community Empowerment
Network
Wandsworth Environmental Forum
Wandsworth Environmental Forum
The Putney Society
United African Family
Wandsworth Council Officers in attendance
Mr. P. Martin
Chief Executive and Director of Administration
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Ms. E. Rees
Mr. J. Evans
Mr. M. Brook
Mr. S. Dunkling
Mr. R. Evans
Mr. A. Macdonald
Ms. D. Warwick
Ms. O. Okere
PAPER ‘A’
Head of Policy
Policy Coordinator
Economic Development Officer
Assistant Director, Children’s Services
Director of Housing
Director of Technical Services
Director, Adult Social Services
Committee Secretary
1. WELCOME
The Chairman welcomed Mr. Fisk, South Thames College, to his first
meeting of the Wandsworth Local Strategic Partnership.
2. APOLOGIES
On item 1, apologies for absence were received on behalf of Councillor
Heaster; Ms. H. Renwick (Jobcentre Plus); Mr. P. Povey (Balham Town Centre
Partnership); Mrs. S. Roscoe Watts (Wandsworth Town Centre Partnership); and
Mrs. J. Coward (Children and Young People’s Network).
3. PERSONAL AND PREJUDICIAL INTERESTS
On item 2, there were no declarations of interest.
4. MINUTES – 20TH JANUARY 2011
On item 3, it was -
Agreed – That the notes of the previous meeting held on Tuesday, 20th
January 2011 (Paper ‘A’) be approved.
5. MATTERS ARISING
On item 4, there were no matters arising.
6. PARTNER UPDATE
On item 5, Mr. Gray, Wandsworth Environment Forum, spoke on the work
of Wandsworth Environment Forum (WEF) and the WLSP Environmental subgroup.
The WEF is a voluntary umbrella group of individuals and representatives
of organisations local to Wandsworth, which works to enable its members to
participate in the borough’s environmental decision making processes through
collaborative working, campaigning and participation work. The WEF has a
steering group made of individuals and organisations and holds several open
meetings a year. Some of the work of the WEF has included transport issues such
as raising awareness of the ’20 is plenty’ movement; climate change and working
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PAPER ‘A’
closely with Wandsworth Council to facilitate joint working on environmental
issues.
The WLSP Environment sub-group was set up about a year ago and its
vision is for Wandsworth to be a community of global citizens living within
environmental limits in an attractive high quality local environment. However, Mr.
Gray said the sub-group was currently having some difficulties in fully defining its
role and asked members for a steer on what its focus should be as it has lots of
unfulfilled potential.
7. EXECUTIVE BRIEFING ON KEY RECENT DEVELOPMENTS
(i) Health: On item 6(i), Councillor Cousins reported that the transfer of
public health to the Council was proceeding and Wandsworth was at an advanced
stage in its health reform planning. The Health and Wellbeing Board had met
formally twice as a shadow body to help with the transition. Ms. Al-Sharifi, Joint
Director of Public Health, confirmed that the transfer was happening smoothly and
was pleased with the progress made.
Mr. Martin, Chief Executive, added that there was now a new managing
director for health service in Wandsworth, Graham Mackenzie, following the
departure of Ms. Philpott to Croydon. The Chairman, Councillor Lister, reported
that Mr. Mackenzie and his team would be moving in with the Council’s Adult
Social Services department at Putney Bridge Road, and the hope is that the
commissioning staff for both services would be able to work well together. He also
reported that the relationship with GPs was going smoothly, and it is hoped that
the various links would result in a seamless transition. The Chairman thanked Ms.
Al-Sharifi and Mr. Mackenzie’s team for their work.
Mr. Appleton, LINk, said his organisation was very keen to work with Public
Health and said in response to a question that work will be done to ensure that
there was no break in service in the transition from LINk to Healthwatch.
Rev. McKinney, Roehampton Partnership, sought clarification on the
progress of personalised budgets. In response, Ms. Warwick, Director of Adult
Services, said that the use of personalised budgets was a major cultural and
organisational change as it called for the remodelling of services. However, the
Adult Social Services department was working with service users and providers to
implement the change and ensure its success. The system was operational from
1st November 2010 when every new service user referred to Adult Social Services
was reviewed and given a personalised budget. There are currently 6,000
personal service users with just under 30% currently on Personalised Budgets
although the aim is achieve a 100% by 2013. In response to a question on the
environmental impact of the changes, Ms. Warwick confirmed that there was less
dependency on green buses. However, the new system would provide a real
opportunity to do things differently such as opportunities to use local providers.
(ii) Community Budget: On item 6(ii), the Chairman reminded members that
Wandsworth Council was one of 16 pilot group doing the Community Budget. As
part of the process the Council was in the process of looking at how to better
coordinate all the services received by the most complex families in Wandsworth
with the aim of making a difference to their lives. Work has been done to identify
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PAPER ‘A’
these families who were well known to partners of the WLSP, and the Chairman
thanked the police and partners in health service for their hard work so far.
Ms. Rees added that a core team that will make up the Family Recovery
Project had been identified and included the PCT, Mental Health Trust, the Police
and Jobcentre Plus. Staff recruitment will take place in the summer and the plan is
to go live from 1st October 2011. A progress report will be submitted at the June
meeting of the WLSP.
In response to a question, Ms. Rees confirmed that the importance of early
intervention had been recognised and that service is being designed to provide
support, for example, through intensive outreach workers at times of the day that
would be most beneficial to the family being worked with and this may mean
outside of the normal Monday to Friday 9am – 5pm.
(iii) South Thames College: Mr. Fisk, South Thames College, informed
members of the Government’s intention to abolish the Education Maintenance
Allowance (EMA) for young people aged 16-18 years from 2012. As from
September 2011, EMA will be replaced with a £180m bursary scheme for 16-19
year olds in full time education who face financial hardship. Those most in need,
such as those in care, care leavers or those claiming income support will then be
guaranteed a bursary of £1,200 per annum.
As regards higher education, tuition fees will increase from £3,000 to
£9,000. This will be backed by a system of loans both for part and full time
students. The hike in fees has raised concerns that young people will no longer
choose the option of going to university because of fear they might end up with a
£40,000 debt at the end of their courses. It is expected that more students will
probably now consider apprenticeship which will in turn open up new opportunities
for South Thames College to consider.
Mr. Fisk reported that adult education would face a 40% cut in funding over
three years. The proposal is that grants will be afforded on the basis of a fee
assumption, that is, a learner would pay at least 50% of their fees. Those on active
benefits, that is, seeking work, will be able to claim for fees paid whereas those on
inactive benefits will no longer be able to claim a fee. ESOL is no longer being
prioritised by the Government so the College is looking to introduce its own fee
remission to alleviate some of the problems and ensure that there will be targeted
training to assist in gaining employment.
In response to question, Mr. Fisk confirmed that later life learning would still
happen although the fees would need to be reviewed. The College would also like
to introduce more entrepreneurship skills courses.
8. FUTURE OPERATION OF THE WANDSWORTH LOCAL STRATEGIC
PARTNERSHIP
On item 7, Paper ‘B’, the Chairman reminded members that the WLSP was
set up in 2001 and since this time had worked in a way largely prescribed by the
Government’s own business requirements. However, this prescriptive nature, for
example the LAA monitoring, has now been removed following the change in
Government in May 2010. As such it was now appropriate to review the work of
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PAPER ‘A’
the WLSP, consider whether to change how it operates in order to ensure it
remains fit for purpose in future. The Chairman asked members to note the
various options set out in the paper.
There followed discussions on how best the WLSP could operate in future
with a wide range of views expressed including the following:
• retain the status quo
• have less meetings but detailed discussions at the meetings;
• less meetings but more detailed in-depth work with the sub-groups;
• have facilitated events which would be more interactive;
• there needs to be better communication so retain status quo
In conclusion, it was agreed to retain the current four meetings a year with
one of the meetings, the October meeting, being longer than usual to run as a
Summit-type session that would be more interactive with input from partners on
the work, priorities and vision for the coming year
9. PRIORITY AREA OVERVIEW
On item 8, Paper ‘C’, Mr. Evans, Policy Coordinator, spoke to his paper on
the Priority Area Overview (PAO) 2011 which is a deprivation assessment for
Wandsworth. The Council has longstanding approach of using data to assess
deprivation and relative needs in planning services, targeting resources and
supporting funding bids. The PAO analysis has been in place since 2006 and it
brings together socio-economic datasets across four domains, namely the
Economy, Education, Health and Crime, to determine the ranking of each ward
relative to the borough’s mean (a type of meta-analysis).
Mr. Evans then outlined key findings of the PAO across the four domain.
The Economic domain which measures income deprivation is arguably the largest
single influence and underlying cause of poverty and deprivation. There is no
direct measure of household income so ‘proxies’ such as the proportion of working
age population in receipt of benefits are used instead.
Members were informed that whilst under the Education domain it was easy
to obtain the attainment data for schools and the borough, it was more useful, in
understanding deprivation, to look at attainment in terms of where a pupil lives
rather than the school they attend. As such, a resident-based data is used in the
PAO. Mr. Evans outlined results achieved for KS1, KS2 and GCSE as set out in
the report and reminded members that it did not include results for independent
schools.
Under Health domain, Mr. Evans said that whilst death and birth were well
measured, and various measures included in this analysis, the information
regarding the prevalence of disease was less know. Under Crime domain, crime
instances as well as known location of offenders were highlighted. Mr. Evans
reported that instances of crime were not evenly spread in the borough.
In conclusion, Mr. Evans informed members on the methodology involved
in bringing data together into the final PAO. A ward level z-score technique is used
to summarise the data with a positive z-score representing a higher level of
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PAPER ‘A’
problem than might be expected and a negative z-score representing a lower level
of problem. The analysis showed that Latchmere and Roehampton, followed by
Tooting and Queenstown exhibit deprivation across most, if not all, dimensions of
deprivation. The position of the most and lest deprived ward remains relatively
unchanged since the previous update. The PAO gives an assessment of needs in
the borough and is a useful tool for the Partnership.
10. ANY OTHER BUSINESS
Asset Management: On item 9, Rev. McKinney sought information about
Putney Hospital and was informed that the Council was in negotiation with the
PCT about building a school on the site.
As regards Bolingbroke Hospital, the Chairman confirmed that the Council
had acquired it and was now waiting for a decision from the Department for
Education on funding it. The Council will be responsible for the building after which
it will be handed over to ARK.
11. DATE OF NEXT MEETING
On item 10, it was agreed to next meet in June with the actual date to be
sent out to members by email.
[Post meeting – members were informed that the meeting would be held on
Tuesday, 28th June 2011]
The meeting ended at 8.20p.m.
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