Agenda item

Report of the Director of Community Protection

Lylse-Anne Renwick and Beth Hanna, Neighbourhood Development Officers, and Cherry Underwood, Chief Executive, Renewal Trust, presented the report, which detailed a proposal to form an Area Partnership to adopt the 4 priorities based on the needs analysis of the area (of isolation and loneliness, mental health, digital inclusion, and food poverty) and a proposal to agree a future Community Hub model for the Area, with the intention of continuing to support local communities by combining Council and external organisations’ knowledge and resources, as has been happening during the pandemic.

The following was stated:

i.  each of the Area Partnershipswould have their own distinct ambitions, visions and priorities aimed at meeting the local needs and aspirations of residents living in the wards that fall within an Area Committees’ boundaries;

ii.  Neighbourhood Development Officers have been working with Nottingham Trent University MBA students and have carried out research to investigate and recommend which Community Hub model fits better locally to meet the changing needs and demands of the communities living in the areas during and post Covid-19;

iii.  a questionnaire was formulated and distributed to partner organisations to complete, and they were invited to a meeting to discuss the results;

iv.  the questionnaire and meeting were designed to determine the partner organisation’s priorities and see if there was a consensus among them. They were asked to select four key priorities from the questionnaire/meeting, based on the themes that had gained most importance during wave one Covid-19 pandemic, relevant to all wards in the area. The return of the questionnaires was too low to be statistically viable, but the analysis is available on request;

v.  the Community Hubs would support the delivery of the Area priorities and help reframe the connections and relationships between statutory, voluntary and faith sectors, change the way services are operating by removing silo-working and barriers and explore opportunities for joint working and funding;

vi.  the Area Partnerships would be aligned to the existing Area Committee boundaries and each Area Partnership would report to the relevant Area Committee.

The Committee stated that this is a good start, but there is still a way to go, and the pandemic has highlighted that closer, more effective partnership working is the way forward.

Resolved

(1)  to adopt the four priorities recommended by the newly formed Area Partnerships, based on the needs analysis of the area;

(2)  to agree the Community hub model for the Dales, Mapperley and St Ann’s Area, as detailed in the report;

(3)  that the Neighbourhood Development Officer forward to all members of the Committee a ‘user friendly’, up-to-date, version of the indices of deprivation and local data.