Nottingham Community Network

Linking the voluntary sector and neighbourhood renewal

Community Network open meeting, January 2008

Helen Voce welcomed everyone and gave a quick introduction to the open meetings. Click here to see who came along.

Each open meeting focuses on a different theme partnership. Dorian Leatham, Chairman of the Housing Strategic Partnership, came along today to discuss their work and answer any questions.

Housing Strategic Partnership

Dorian introduced himself to the group and told us about his background in housing regeneration, mostly in London. Dorian joined the housing partnership a few months ago and has big plans for its work. This includes:

Establishing housing as the main priority for the City Council
Ensuring that the partnership isn't dominated by the City Council
Making sure that the right people are on the partnership
Developing a communications strategy
Setting up several working groups, including community cohesion, transformation and an executive group
Performance monitoring for every working group and Dorian himself
Getting private developers on board
Making better links with Nottingham City Homes
Producing a housing strategy by the middle of 2008
Working closer with other theme partnerships

Dorian then took questions from the group, including:

Q - Is City Homes taking over the role of the City Council?

A - Dorian is a strong believer in communication, and believes that if City Homes and City Council work closer with the partnership, things will improve. However Dorian made it clear that he is an independent chair and cannot defend City Homes or the City Council. Helen added that in the voluntary sector we are working on the ground and can feed back invaluable information to other partners.

Q - How can you improve health and other public services?

A - Forward planning. Think about bedroom sizes and local facilities. Work with police and intervene early. Probation, education and the youth service must be involved to make an area work.

Dorian spoke about the importance of early intervention - interacting with them will gain their respect and help get them into better employment.

Helen added that Claire Grainger from Hostels Liaison Group is a voluntary sector representative on the housing partnership, and she will feed back through the Network.

Dorian is happy to come back to this open meeting at a later date to update on the progress of the partnership.

One Nottingham peer review

Andrew Balchin, Chief Executive of One Nottingham, has just received the draft report for the One Nottingham peer review.

A peer review is a process developed by the national Improvement and Development Agency. It is a way of getting an organisation's peers together to give an external view on its progress and achievements. One Nottingham's peer review included officers from Wolverhampton primary care trust, Birmingham City Council and the CVS at York, amongst others.

The draft report will be used to create an improvement plan for One Nottingham. Updates will be given through the Network.

Funding

Andrew explained that the funding situation is not easy and One Nottingham are trying to resolve the situation as well as is possible.

The Neighbourhood Renewal Fund has been replaced by the Working Neighbourhoods Fund, and Nottingham will receive a third less funding compared to other years. The One Nottingham Board is meeting on Friday 25 January to decide which projects can continue to receive funding next year. If there is money left over, decisions will be made in partnership as to how it's spent.

Questions were asked about individual projects - unfortunately Andrew could not answer these until the One Nottingham Board has made its decisions on 25 January.

Speedy updates on the theme partnerships

Not all representatives were present to update the group, so their updates have been added to the minutes afterwards.

One Nottingham - Helen

The election for the voluntary sector BME representative for the One Nottingham Board is now open, with voting closing on 1 February. Aneela Asim and Afzal Sadiq are the two candidates.
Nottingham is working towards being an Early Intervention City.
The LAA targets will be decided by the end of January.
The Board are taking the ongoing funding issues very seriously.

Communities and Neighbourhoods Partnership - Jo Dean

There will be a review of the structure and approach of the partnership at the end of January.
Recommended to One Nottingham that a target for people feeling they can influence decisions and environment in the third sector should be included in the LAA.
Working closely with the Children and Young People's Partnership to learn from their experiences of partnership development.
The One Nottingham Partnership Week in February will include a lunchtime learning session on the Nottingham Compact.

Liveability Partnership - John Norrington

Role and membership of the partnership is being reviewed in the context of new LAA, funding arrangements etc.
Underspend on the Cleaner Greener Fund will be allocated to the Parks Improvement programme.
Nottingham was confirmed as the cleanest core city in 2006/07.

Crime and Drugs Partnership - Anna Ratcliff

Forest Fields week of action is the last to be completed. Initiatives have included graffiti clearing, bulb planting and the launch of Area 4 Health and Wellbeing Forum.
Public consultation exercise, November 2007 - results have been incorporated into the CDP's Strategic Assessment Plan and forwarded to the executive.
Sanctuary scheme - for women and children experiencing domestic violence, enabling them to remain in their own home safely.
Independent Advisory Group - 25 people have been shortlisted for this group, with interviews on 9 February.

Children, young people and families partnership - Muhaj

Big piece of work looking at decommissioning - what will fit into next year
The partnership has a shadow board made up of voluntary sector representatives. They are looking at how this shadow board is involved in the work of the partnership
The Children and Young People Plan is being finalised. Go to www.nottinghamics.org.uk to find out more.

Health Partnership

An update was not available. Watch the ebulletin for updates next week.

Skills Board - Hannah Wharton

The Executive Group agreed to formalise the arrangements for working groups for each employment sector (for example construction and retail)
An update was given on the construction strategy report - a revised paper summarising the key priorities for the public sector, drawing on the Jobs Pledge, will be produced
East Midland Business Ltd and East Midlands Development Agency will be asked to clarify issues relating to training brokerage and support services for small and medium size enterprises.

Any other bits n bobs

None.

Come along to our next meeting

Monday 10 March 2008
2.00pm to 4.30pm
Voluntary Action Centre, Mansfield Road