Meeting documents

Apologies for absence were received from:

Patricia Birchley, Healthy Communities Partnership

Juliet Brown, Buckinghamshire Hospitals Trust (sub = Kingsley Grimble)

Jenny Hunt, Community Impact Bucks

Michael Hunt, Encompass (sub = Cora Carvey)

Rita Lally, Adult Commissioners (sub = Trevor Boyd)

Patrick Martin, BALC

Warren Ralls, SEEDA

Warren Whyte, Aylesbury Vale LSP

Changes in membership:

Patricia Birchley was now the representative from the Healthy Communities Partnership on the Board

Nick Rose was now the Leader of CDC and representative of the Chiltern Community Partnership on the Board

There were no declarations of interest.

The Minutes of the meeting held on 4 May 2010 were agreed and signed as a correct record.

Sarah Ashmead, Head of Policy, Performance and Communications

The Board received the Update Report from the Bucks Strategic Implementation Group (BSPIG).

Chris Williams (Chief Executive, Buckinghamshire County Council) told members the following:

·         The CAA inspection framework had now been abolished. Cuts had been made to the LAA Reward Grant in other areas, and little or no reward grant was expected for Buckinghamshire in the current financial year.

·         The BSPIG had reviewed current commitments against the LAA pooled fund and had concluded that the current BSP priorities should remain as a focus. Any underspends would be handed back to the pooled fund.

·         Home and Communities Agency (HCA) Single Conversation Update – BSPIG had agreed £35k to support this. The project was on track to deliver the draft local investment plan in September 2010.

·         Institute of Community Cohesion Review – the findings had been reported to BSPIG and would be explored further at a conference on 16 July 2010. The next meeting of the BSPIG would include a workshop session about the role of the voluntary and community sector in the delivery of public services (in the context of the ‘Big Society’ debate).

·         Local Transport Plan 3 – this consultation had been delayed until autumn 2010. A provisional draft plan would be available by 31 March 2010.

·         Broadband – discussions had taken place with BT Openreach to establish 13 Bucks exchanges with ‘fibre to cabinet’ provision.

·         Appendix A was a list of projects funded by the LAA pooled fund. Adult Participation in Sport was a large project which had been match-funded by Sport England. The total unallocated fund = £157 080.

Sarah Ashmead, Head of Policy, Performance and Communications

The Board received the Report on partnership working.

Chris Williams (Chief Executive, Buckinghamshire County Council) told members that in the context of significant expected cuts and a national move to localism, the BSPIG had considered how partners could work together and which of the priorities identified from the sustainable communities strategies should be the focus of this joint work.

Areas had been identified where partnership working was critical to delivery.  Public services would need to focus increasingly on the most vulnerable, leaving those who could help themselves to do so. This fitted with the personal responsibility agenda in the sustainable community strategy.

The six areas which had been identified were:

·         Broadband coverage

·         Helping people to live at home

·         Integrated offender management

·         Public realm/clean streets

·         Tackling childhood poverty

·         Promoting personal responsibility

These areas fitted with the theme of ‘Promoting prosperity – narrowing the gaps.’

It was proposed that the Board authorise a review of the partnership working structures and processes in order to establish an efficient delivery model that fitted with the Board’s priorities for partnership working.  This would include bringing forward proposals to wind up those existing partnerships and meetings that did not add significant value to the agreed priorities.

Members then asked questions. The questions and answers are summarised below.

Page 16 – can some wording be added regarding home safety checks?

This can be considered but a question remains around how it could be funded in future.

Can sustainable/green energy be included under the sustainable environment theme?

Resources and staff are limited. We need to focus on those things which are important to residents. However sustainable energy is an important issue.

Should the Government emphasis on cost reduction also be reflected in these priorities? This does need to be considered, especially with the level of predicted cuts in some areas.

The ‘Total Place’ agenda looks at shared responsibility and pooled budgets. The Government cost reductions provide a context for all the projects identified in the Report. A search for efficiencies through joint working will be added to the Report. Action

How far do you think we are (re: scale and scope) with the development of a locally-driven, outcome-driven agreement?

This reflects the discussion held at the BSPIG meeting around the need for high level outcome aspirations on outcomes, and geographic or sector-based delivery (e.g. projects already there in Wycombe and Aylesbury).  We need to complement local methods of communications (e.g. community messaging) with higher level methods.

Were there any priorities which almost made the final list but were dropped?

No – the group which made the decisions was representative.

A member said that they were concerned that the priority of promoting personal responsibility could take a large chunk of the total budget. Chris Williams said that this was about managing people’s expectations and not currently a project but rather a message running alongside communications about reductions.

There was a challenge to the number of proposed priorities and whether or not there was capacity to support them.  ...  view the full minutes text for item 5.

Stephen Czajewski, Operational Director for Buckinghamshire Local Delivery Unit and Approved Premises, Thames Valley Probation

Chief Superintendent Paul Emmings, Basic Command Unit Commander Buckinghamshire, Thames Valley Police;  Chairman of the Safer and Stronger Bucks Partnership Board

Susie Yapp, Safer Bucks Partnership Manager

Joint presentation by Stephen Czajewski and Paul Emming on Integrated Offender Management (IOM), which will cover some of the information and give more detailed background as to how IOM is structured and delivered in Buckinghamshire.

Followed by Workshop Session - 20 minute consideration and then feedback of three key contributions which could facilitate a reduction in re-offending of targeted offenders.

The Board received a presentation on Integrated Offender Management from Paul Emmings (Thames Valley Police / Safer and Stronger Bucks Partnership Board) and Steve Czajewski (Thames Valley Probation).

During the presentation the following points were made:

·         The ‘Iris’ project in Oxfordshire had been set up to manage prolific offenders and had worked very well.

·         Integrated Offender Management had been set up to help to do the same in Buckinghamshire.

·         This would include development of work with ‘potential offenders," who were not necessarily managed under existing statutory processes.

·         Integrated Offender Management was about supporting and helping to change offending behaviour and to sustain positive change.

·         The end aim was to reduce offending and harm caused to communities.

Members then asked questions – the questions and answers (from Paul Emmings, Steve Czajewski and Susie Yapp) are summarised below.

How do you measure the level of success for non-compulsory engagement?

The figures for 1-2 year offending rates can be looked at, as can the level of engagement and how less regularly offending is being detected for an individual.

A proportion of people do walk away but we would come back to them. Offenders spending less than 12 months in prison do slip through a statutory gap, and there is a need to engage with them at an early stage of their prison sentence as reoffending rates for this group are very high.

It is also necessary to flag people on the cusp of becoming entrenched in their behaviour.

I am amazed at the number of incidents involving people with mental health challenges – how can a link be made regarding this?

Learning Disability is another link as is drug addiction. Relationships and referral pathways need to be developed.

The Head of the Probation Service this week said that more people need to be treated in the community. Will this generate an increase in the number of people for Integrated Offender Management?

It is a challenge as to how to manage the current numbers on a decreased budget. We need to apply Total Place principles and broker seven pathways with a decreased resource.

Several Total Place areas have used Integrated Offender Management as a model, and there will be a potential saving of £0.25m in Bradford.

How realistic is it to give resources to ‘potential offenders?’

The key is to ensure engagement from all community agencies.  The focus is on burglary, auto-theft and street robbery. IOM offenders are from this profile.  As far as the police are concerned resources put in are one inspector, one sergeant and four constables. 40 people were chosen who were at risk of ‘slipping between statutory nets.’

Integrated Offender Management relies heavily on intelligence and offenders’ risk of re-offending is prioritised as red, amber or green. The priority for an individual can be moved up and down very quickly and resources deployed.

How inter-generational is this work?

A family interventions project focuses on reducing youth crime and is very proactive.

Susie Yapp (DAAT) then ran a group session,  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6.

Chris Williams (Chief Executive, Buckinghamshire County Council) referred members to the Report in the agenda papers.

In Barnet, under the Total place agenda, a social worker had lived with a family and had logged the number of interventions from different agencies – there had been 28.

A conference had been held on 24 June 2010 and the actions from that were being developed. ‘Think Family’ had huge potential to link with Integrated Offender Management and with mental health issues.

A further report would be brought to the Board in due course.

Cora Carvey, Chief Executive, Community Impact Bucks

Cora Carvey (Chief Executive, Community Impact Bucks) told members the following:

·         Community Impact Bucks had been formed from four existing organisations.

·         Community Impact Bucks operated infrastructure services for the voluntary and community sector (VCS) and acted as the Rural Community Council running a range of projects to identify and meet local community needs. Community Impact Bucks operated as the Volunteer Centre for Buckinghamshire. Training programmes were run for volunteers, and some of the programmes were accredited. It included enabling volunteers with additional support needs to access opportunities, and providing opportunities for ‘professional’ volunteers to offer their skills on short term projects.

·         Current priorities were: obtaining an IT system which would work for all four organisations; looking for synergies; working on impact mapping of work in geographic communities and ‘communities of interest’.

·         A key task was to support those registered with Community Impact Bucks to ensure their sustainability and that they could access funding and other needed resources.

·         Research was being carried out on the impact of deprivation on rural communities. The results of this would come back to the BSP Board.

·         Community Impact Bucks had been asked to fill two vacant VCS posts on the BSP Board. A workshop had been held and a paper was being prepared to be sent to the VCS.

The Chairman thanked Cora Carvey for attending the meeting and for providing this update.  

30 September 2010, 2:30pm, Uplands Conference Centre, Four Ashes Road, Cryers Hill, High Wycombe, HP15 6LB

20 January 2011, 2:30pm, Chartridge Conference Centre, Chartridge

11 May 2011, 2:30pm, Green Park Conference Centre, Aston Clinton

12 July 2011, 2:30pm, venue tbc

30 September 2010, 2:30pm, Uplands Conference Centre, Four Ashes Road, Cryers Hill, High Wycombe, HP15 6LB

20 January 2011, 2:30pm, Chartridge Conference Centre, Chartridge

11 May 2011, 2:30pm, Green Park Conference Centre, Aston Clinton

12 July 2011, 2:30pm, venue tbc