Agenda and minutes

Apologies were received from Cllrs Frank Mahon and Greg Smith.

The Chairman was pleased to confirm that Cllr Ashley Waite had agreed to continue to serve as Vice-Chairman of the Communities and Localism Select Committee for the ensuing year.

Cllr Peter Cooper declared an interest in relation to item 7 as he was Chairman of the Queens Park Arts Centre which received a grant from the Council.

The minutes of the meetings held on 19^th April and 17^th May 2023 to be confirmed as a correct record.

The minutes of the meetings held on 19^th April and 17^th May were confirmed as a correct record.

Public questions is an opportunity for people who live, work or study in Buckinghamshire to put a question to a Select Committee.

The Committee will hear from members of the public who have submitted questions in advance relating to items on the agenda. The Cabinet Member, relevant key partners and responsible officers will be invited to respond.

Further information on how to register can be found here: https://www.buckinghamshire.gov.uk/your-council/get-involved-with-council-decisions/select-committees/

There were none.

The Committee will receive an overview of a recent Healthy Libraries pilot project, delivered jointly by Libraries and Public Health.   

Contributors:

Cllr Clive Harriss, Cabinet Member for Culture and Leisure

Sophie Payne, Head of Culture and Leisure

David Jones, Head of Libraries

Katie DeJoux, Culture and Outreach Services Manager

Gina Nicholls, Health & Information Services Manager

Stephanie Moffatt, Programme Lead or Frances Mason, Public Health Principal

The Chairman welcomed Sophie Payne, Service Director, Culture, Sport and Leisure, David Jones, Head of Libraries, Katie DeJoux, Culture and Outreach Services Manager, Frances Mason, Public Health Principal, Lyn Mangisi, Libraries Support and Development Manager and Irzam Malik, Public Health Programme Officer to the meeting.  The Chairman noted that Cllr Clive Harriss was stuck in traffic so would join the meeting shortly and invited Sophie Payne to introduce the item.

Sophie Payne reminded members that the Vision for Libraries had been discussed at a meeting earlier this year and included four key priorities – Encouraging Culture, Stronger Communities, Promoting Access and Inclusion and Health and Wellbeing.  There was also a commitment to work with partners, empower staff and develop libraries as key hubs in the community.  Healthy Libraries was a pilot project developed with Public Health to promote and support the Health and Wellbeing strategy, which aimed to encourage residents to ‘Start Well, Live Well, Age Well.’

Katie DeJoux, Culture and Outreach Services Manager and Frances Mason, Public Health Principal gave a presentation on the Healthy Libraries pilot and the following main points were noted:

• Libraries have 29 sites and almost 200,000 members who visit over 600,000 times in a year.  For this project, they partnered with Public Health and 13 other partners, including Buckinghamshire Mind, Dementia Action Alliance, Alzheimer’s Society, The Reading Agency and Wycombe Wanderers Foundation and delivered the pilot in Buckingham, Aylesbury, Chesham, High Wycombe, Gerrards Cross, Iver Heath and Burnham libraries. Aylesbury, Chesham and High Wycombe were chosen as they include the Opportunity Bucks wards and Buckingham and the libraries in South Bucks were included to ensure a geographical spread across the county and to ensure some representation in more rural areas.
• During the pilot, 64 events were held across the 7 libraries and 122 staff and volunteers were trained in ‘Making Every Contact Count’ from a health and wellbeing point of view.  A variety of specialist events ranging from dementia action week talks, baby sleep advice sessions, NHS health checks, seed sowing workshop for children and menopause workshops were offered and blood pressure monitoring kits were also available to borrow from some libraries.  30 kits had been loaned out since May.
• 11 Cosy Corners were also set up to provide a friendly welcoming environment for residents with dementia and their carers in the library, alongside helpful information. 
• Better Points is a free app that has been launched to encourage residents to make healthy choices in their lives. Anyone over 14 can use it and collect points which can be donated to charities or redeemed in local shops.  When Healthy Libraries is rolled out more widely, people may also be rewarded with points for attending their health and wellbeing events.
• The full evaluation of the pilot is still ongoing but the plan is to roll this out across all libraries and hope to expand it to the prison library service as well. This summer’s reading challenge also has a sports and being active theme.

In response  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6.

The Committeewill have an opportunity to review the new arrangements being proposed for the administration of grants for the VCS sector.  The presentation will include an overview of the background to the VCS Grant review, governance processes and consultation that has taken place with the sector to date. 

Contributors:

Cllr Arif Hussain, Cabinet Member for Communities

Sarah Ashmead, Deputy Chief Executive

Hannah Thynne, Head of Policy and Improvement

Jack Pearce, Senior Policy Officer

The Chairman welcomed Cllr Arif Hussain, Cabinet Member for Communities, Roger Goodes, Service Director, Partnerships, Policy and Communications, Hannah Thynne, Head of Policy and Improvement and Jack Pearce, Senior Policy Officer to the meeting.  The Cabinet Member took the Select Committee through a short presentation outlining the VCS Grant Overview and the following main points were noted:

• £2.3m grants were inherited from the five legacy councils.  These, along with Community Prevention Grants totalling £350,000, have been reviewed, with a view to taking a longer term approach to grant funding which will allow VCS organisations to have more stability and be able to plan for the future more easily.
• The Shadow Executive agreed in February 2020 that a review should take place and that it would be helpful to move towards multi-year funding agreements in place of annual grants.  Funding for shorter term local projects could be sought via Community Boards or other external funding opportunities.
• In February 2022 a decision was made that the second stage of the review would include the development of a single register of VCS funding across the Council and a comprehensive funding guide to local and national funding opportunities.  Proposals would also be developed for the Buckinghamshire Lottery.
• In addition, services across the Council were asked to review the existing legacy grants and put forward proposals for future proposals to ensure multi-years funding opportunities which would encourage VCS activity which supports their service strategy. Consultation on these proposals would take place with local members over the Summer and the member working group would also review them ahead of a final decision.
• VCS organisations would then be notified by the end of September 2023 of any changes to their grants for the next financial year.
• Subsequently it was decided that there was limited value in producing a new funding guide as there was already a plethora of information on the Council’s website and specialist support was also available from Gail Hudson, Senior Policy Officer and via Community Impact Bucks and other larger VCS organisations.

The Chairman thanked the Cabinet Member for this overview and invited members’ questions.  The following responses and comments during subsequent discussions were noted:

• A member noted that the total budget under discussion was £2.6million that the legacy councils had considered valuable and he asked what the budget was for the next financial year.  In response it was noted that this was not a savings exercise and the base budget available for grant funding remained the same.  The review was more about focussing on a more strategic approach that would enable the Council and VCS partners to plan more readily for the medium to long term.
• A member endorsed the decision not to produce a new funding guide and felt there was more value in ensuring the efficiency of grant funding processes.  He applauded the community board grants as a progressive funding model but expressed concerns that sometimes the amount of officer time expended on small grant applications seemed disproportionate.
• A member expressed  ...  view the full minutes text for item 7.

Members have expressed an interest in undertaking an in-depth review into the topic of Digital Exclusion. The Committee are invited to consider and agree a scope for this piece of work and volunteers will be sought to join the review group.  

Contributors:

Kelly Sutherland, Scrutiny Manager

All members

The Select Committee considered and agreed the scope for a review into Digital Exclusion.  The Chairman advised that Cllr Ashley Waite would chair this review and invited other members to volunteer to join the group – Cllrs Cooper, Knight, Oliver and Linda Smith agreed to take part.  It was agreed that the Scrutiny Manager would arrange an initial meeting on MS Teams in July to discuss the evidence gathering approach.  It was likely that the evidence gathering meetings would begin in September.

The Committee will discuss the draft work programme for the coming year.

Contributors:

All Committee Members

The Select Committee considered and agreed the work programme for the year ahead.  The Chairman advised that the work programme would continue to evolve and if members had any topics that they wished to suggest as potential agenda items they could contact him or the Scrutiny Manager directly.

The next meeting will take place on 4^th October 2023 at 10am.

4^th October 2023 at 10am