Agenda item

To consider item 13

(Councillor Lambert left the meeting)

The Chairman introduced the report and advised Members that following a decision made at the Business Transformation Board on 10 February 2022, any further decision on the continuation of the Safety Centre funding agreement was deferred until the Autumn to enable the Safety Centre to evidence one full year of delivery following its reopening after the national lockdowns and response to Covid-19.

The Community Safety and Safeguarding Manager advised Members that the Safety Centre was a scenario based learning resource based in Milton Keynes. The Service was a key member in establishing it, over 25 years ago. Since then, the Service had utilised the Safety Centre to deliver education to young people through a series of funding agreements. This report recommends a three year funding agreement of £25k per annum. This would facilitate the delivery of education to a minimum of 4000 children and young people in accordance with the heads of terms defined in the report.

The Community Safety and Safeguarding Manager advised Members that as mentioned by the Chairman, this was deferred from the routine review point in Quarter 4, to enable a full year of trading to be reviewed following the appointment of a new CEO, and also a period where the centre was forced to close to accepting young people because of the demands of Covid. Whilst the centre was not able to accept or run school visits on its premises, it utilised the time to refresh the premises with new branding and replace an outdated scenario with a new street scenario and diversify to improve its outreach offering. The new CEO had a very clear sense of how the staff at the centre could educate and improve the outcomes for children and young people, and had continued to build on the outreach programme so that children and young people could be engaged with offsite, as well as through the scenarios. This also increased their ability to deliver to multiple groups of children at the same time. Fundamentally, the Safety Centre enabled the Service to discharge some of its requirements to educate through qualified staff and well developed programmes.

The Chairman advised Members that after the February 2023 Fire Authority meeting which was being held in Milton Keynes, a visit to the Safety Centre would be arranged.

The Leader of Milton Keynes Council advised Members that Milton Keynes Council also funded the Safety Centre, and the Safety Centre would be receiving some Section 106 money from a local development, if any Member was worried about the reduction in funding from the Service.

A Member asked if there was an opportunity for young people and people from the different backgrounds identified to have the time to visit the centre and did the centre have data to reflect how many groups were attending the centre and encouraging them to think about the Service and how they can get involved.

The Community Safety and Safeguarding Manager advised Members that in terms of Equality Impact Assessment and the children attending the centre, there had been a number of schemes put in place over recent years where the centre had provided, and was providing over this half term period, additional sessions for those children who were living in hotels under the Afghan Resettlement programme. This had been funded through the Community Foundation. Looking at how the Service recruits in the future, ultimately, it related to status of people within those groups as to whether they would be able to be recruited in the future. The centre was also targeting schools who had not engaged previously, or were in hard to reach areas, and looked at areas of deprivation and the areas where there were higher number of children taking free school meals, these numbers could be used to inform matters in the future.

RESOLVED –

A funding agreement with the Safety Centre of £25,000 a year for a three-year term commencing on 1 October 2022 on the terms set out in this report be approved.