Meeting documents

Isobel Darby (Chairman)                Chiltern DC

Roger Reed (for Cllr Busby),         South Bucks DC/ Bucks CC

Mimi Harker                                       Chiltern DC

Jonathan Rush                                Chiltern DC

Anita Cranmer                                  South Bucks DC

Nick Naylor                                       South Bucks DC

Jennifer Woolveridge                      South Bucks DC

Mary Buckman                                 Latimer and Ley Hill Parish Council       

Chris Brown                                      Gerrards Cross Parish Council

Marilyn Heath                                   Denham Parish Council 

Ruth Juett                                         Chesham Town Council

Linda Smith                                      Chalfont St Peters Parish Council

Bill Youel                                           Farnham Royal Parish Council

 

Voluntary/ Community Sector

 

Davida Allen                                     Chiltern Revitalisation Groups

Martin Farrow                                   Bucks Care

Graham Tomlin                                Credit Union

Marion Seneshall                            South Bucks Citizen Advice Bureau

 

Thames Valley Police and Bucks Fire and Rescue Service

Steve Hockin                                    Thames Valley Police

Steve Wells                                       Bucks Fire and Rescue Service

 

Business and Learning Sector

Ruper Waters                                   Bucks Business First

Alison Hadden                                 Paradigm Housing

Aisling Mylrea                                   London & Quadrant Housing Trust

 

Officers

South Bucks and Chiltern District Council

Alan Goodrum                                  Chief Executive

Jim Burness                                      Director of Resources

Bob Smith                                         Director of Services

Rachel Prance                                 Principal Officer for Policy, Performance & Communications

Michael Veryard                               Housing Manager

 

Chiltern District Council

Aisha Bi                                             Assistant Policy and Improvement Officer

 

Buckinghamshire County Council

Jackie Wesley                                  Localities & Communities Manager

Rebecca Carley                               Locality Services Manager

 

Apologies for Absence:-

 

Adrian Busby, Tim Butcher, Dev Dhillon, David Martin, Gillian Quinton, Mark Shaw, David Schofield, Earl of Stockton, Alan Walters, and Ruth Vigor-Hedderly

 

Amersham Town, Ashley Green, Chalfont St Giles, Chartridge, Chenies, Chesham Bois, Chesham Town, Cholesbury-Cum-st-Leonard, Coleshill, Great Missenden, Little Chalfont, Little Missenden, Penn, Seer Green, The Lee, Beaconsfield, Burnham, Dorney, Fulmer, Hedgerley, Iver, Stoke Poges, Taplow and Wrexham.

Faith Community

Rev Bill Jackson                  Faith representative (St Peter’s Church, Burnham)  

Parvinder Matheru               Faith Representative

NHS Clinical Commissioning Group

Nicola Lester                         NHS Clinical Commissioning Group

Business and Learning Sector

Rodney Mallinson                           Federation of Small Businesses

Alastair Pike                          Thames Valley Chamber of Commerce (South Bucks)

 

 

 

The minutes of the Chiltern and South Bucks Joint Strategic Partnership meeting held on 24^th April 2014 were received, copies of which had been previously circulated.

RESOLVED that:-

The minutes were approved and accepted by Councillor I Darby as a correct record. 

 

 

Graham Tomlin, Director, Credit Union Solution

Graham Tomlin thanked the partnership for the opportunity to present to them.

 

The South Buckinghamshire Community Bank is part of an already existing credit union called M for Money. M for Money Credit Union has 57,000 credit unions worldwide in 103 different counties with 200 million customers.

 

The South Buckinghamshire Credit Union covers the following areas: Chiltern, South Bucks, Wycombe, Slough, Splethorne, London Borough of Harrow and London Borough of Hillingdon.  A new business plan has been developed for the community bank which includes measures to the increase of demand to the service.

 

The work of the credit union bank is supported by two volunteers one for Wycombe and one from Chiltern. At the next AGM we hope to have a third volunteer from South Bucks.

 

Chiltern District Council, South Bucks District Councils, Chiltern Clinical Commissioning Group, Wycombe District council, Slough Council, Uxbridge College and Harrow Council. The Credit Union currently has 92 members only 16 members are from the SL postcode area. £37,532 was saved in the last ten months. There are currently 638,000 loans outstanding.

 

The scheme has received support from MPs Steve Baker, Cheryl Gillan and Dominic Grieve who have all joined. There currently are 648 adult members and 173 junior members. The Credit Union continues to grow quickly for the fourth year running and giving dividends to members. Paying dividends to member’s increases confidence and encouraging them to save.

 

The Credit Union aims to help support people with poor credit history, or those who find managing their finances difficult, to prevent them falling prey to loan sharks and high-interest loan companies. The Credit Union has also recently launched a new child benefit service. The service aims to help individuals who may not have any money to save to allow them to borrow. It allows for the child benefit to be redirected to credit union so it can be split between paying back the loan and a savings account. The service was launched in June 2014.

 

Buckinghamshire Community Foundation has helped fund the recruitment of a Community Development officer who is working to promote Credit Union to local communities.

 

The Credit Union also offers PayPoint cards which act as prepaid debit cards for those who want to stay away from banks. The Credit Union in the future will also offer a basic bank account which will set the Credit Union apart from competition. Deposits will be FCS protected. The Credit Union is continually looking for new and innovative products. Information points have been set up to allow people to have face to face support. A possible future project being developed would be an app to allow smartphone users to have easy access.

 

The following points were noted in the discussion:

-      There is no minimum allowance required to set up an account. The maximum is no more than £10,000.

-      The Child Benefit scheme is not restricted to just child benefit; parents allowance would be acceptable. Parents are able to act as a guarantor.

-      Elderly  ...  view the full minutes text for item 3.

Martin Farrow, Managing Director, Buckinghamshire Care

The Partnership received a presentation from Martin Farrow Managing Director for Buckinghamshire Care. The presentation gave an overview of Buckinghamshire Care and what they did.

 

In discussions after the presentation the following points were noted:

-      Buckinghamshire Care is the trading arm of Bucks County Council (BCC).

-      The vast majority of cases referred to Buckinghamshire Care are through BCC. The cases are assessed by BCC and funded appropriately before being referred.

-      There are a limited number of self-funded individuals.

-      Individuals are able to self-fund to use the services offered by Buckinghamshire Care.

-      Buckinghamshire Care have now taken over the Centre on Nightingale Road, Denham. The day centre will be rebranded.

-      Martin Farrow can be contacted with any further queries (marfarrow@buckinghamshirecare.co.uk)

 

The Chairman thanked Martin Farrow for his informative presentation.

 

Alan Goodrum, Chief Executive, South Bucks and Chiltern District Councils.

The Partnership received an update on the Peer Review from Alan Goodrum, Chief Executive for Chiltern and South Bucks District Councils. The presentation gave an update on the shared agenda for Chiltern and South Bucks District Councils.

 

The main points from the discussion were:

-      The public have not noticed that a number of services across Chiltern and South Bucks are now shared services.

-      The Councils are halfway through an austerity project which aims to create savings, ensure services are more resilient and improve service quality.

-      A systematic process is in place for service reviews and shared service implementation.

-      The Peer Review is tailored for authorities in shared services. The peer review team will be looking at the whole shared service agenda and write a report outlining the findings. The peer review will take place from 17 - 20 November.

-      The peer review is not an inspection but more of a critical friend outlining what we have done well and what we can improve.

-      The report from the peer review team will be published on Thursday 20th November.

-      The peer review will also be conducting interviewing with partner organisations from police, health, voluntary sector and town and parish councils.

-      A final draft of the Councils position statement has been circulated to all participants

-      The impact of shared services on staff and the pressure on our budgets has resulted in a move to core staff with a small number of temporary or contract staff to support them. There have been a very small number of redundancies.

 

The Chairman thanked Alan Goodrum for his presentation. The chairman also thanked all members of staff for being so cooperative and supportive while going through shared services which had been a stressful and uncertain time for them.

 

Michael Veryard, Principal Housing Officer, Chiltern and South Bucks District Councils

The Partnership received a presentation on the shared housing service from Michael Veryard the Housing Manager for Chiltern and South Bucks District Councils. The presentation covered issues of housing across Chiltern and South Bucks, what the housing service was, and the timetable for the shared service implementation.

 

The main points noted from the presentation were:

-      The new shared service is not a merger. It is a single service serving two masters. Chiltern and South Bucks are still two separate districts.

-      The shared team serves two sets of members, two sets of policies and two different sets of residents.

-      18 months into the service review there is still a lot to do. The housing service is currently being at the implementation phase.

-      Resilience has increased; there is no housing officer based at South Bucks. Customer Services at South Bucks will be fully trained to be able to provide more detailed advice to residents.

-      SBDC have adopted Bucks Home Choice which is software (already used by CDC) which assess applicants and informs them of what size property they are eligible for. Applicants can complete the assessment form themselves without assistance from a housing officer. A housing officer would then be available to assist once the client’s eligibility had been confirmed.

-      Bucks Home Choice holds a list of all available vacancies and allow people to change their preference. 

-      There are differences between Chiltern and South Bucks. Chiltern has specialised temporary accommodation; whereas South Bucks use L&Q/ TVP properties, and B&Bs.

-      Whilst undergoing the service review the housing team also prepared for the implementation of Universal Credit.

-      The shared housing team continues to pool ideas and resources across both districts to ensure that there are as many options as possible available to the service users. 

 

The Chairman thanked Michael Veryard for his presentation. The chairman also thanked all members of the housing team who do a tremendous job.

 

 

Alan Goodrum, Chief Executive, South Bucks and Chiltern District Councils.

The Partnership received an update from Alan Goodrum Chief Executive for Chiltern and South Bucks District Councils. A main theme identified by the economy sub group was the skills shortage. A group met in September to discuss the topic further and any possible programmes the Partnership could be involved in to help with the skills shortage and to improve uptake of apprenticeships in the districts.

 

Professor Ruth Farwell the lead on the LEP Skills Board will being pulling together a short project plan/aim of what we would want to achieve. The project plan will incorporate the group with the ideas that were discussed such as a speed dating event between young people and business maybe hosted at Pinewood studios. This would be targeting the very niche creative industry.

 

The next economy group meeting is due to take place on 1^st December 2014. Topics to be covered at the next meeting include regenerating the local high street, economic report on Chiltern and South Bucks, public sector procurement reforms and planning help for small businesses. 

 

The main points noted from the discussion were:

- The possibility of including a young person on the partnership to allow them to have their voices heard.

- The group were informed of an event being held on 22 November, by the Aylesbury Marines and Sea Cadets asking employers to share what they want of young people.

 

The Chairman drew the meeting’s attention to the proposed forward plan, which was noted. Should any Partner wish to put forward items for the forward plan, please contact Aisha Bi (abi@chiltern.gov.uk).Current items on the forward plan include:

 

July 2015

·           Families First

·           CAB Update

·           Welfare Reform

·           Housing Strategy

·           Review of Partnership

 

November 2015

·           Public Health

·           Health and Wellbeing Board

 

Topics that still need to allocated to the forward plan:

·      HS2 - petitioning, hybrid Bill, construction

·      Planning development

 

 

Members noted that future meetings of the Chiltern and South Bucks Strategic Partnership would be held as follows, commencing at 6.00p.m, but may be subject to change: -

 

·      July 2015, South Bucks District Council Chamber