Agenda item
Partnership Working in Brent (presentation)
A range of partnership approaches are being employed by the council to deliver Corporate Strategy objectives. This presentation will outline the policy drivers, responses to them and highlight recent projects to show what partnership working can deliver in practice.
Minutes:
Joanna McCormick (Partnerships Co-Ordinator) delivered a presentation to the committee on Partnership Working in Brent and what it could deliver in practice, outlining the key policy drivers, responses to these and recent partnership projects. Copies of an accompanying hand-out were distributed to members.
Joanna McCormick advised that at a local level, policy drivers to Partnership Working were drawn from the corporate strategy, ‘Brent Our Future 2010-2014’ and were underpinned by in-depth analysis of a range of data and by feedback obtained via scrutiny of the council and its partners. In a national context, the Localism Bill, the Open Public Services White Paper and the Health and Social Care Bill set the scene for a significant shift in the nature of the relationship with the state. The Localism Bill for example, envisaged an expanded role for the voluntary sector, granted a general power of competence to local authorities allowing a greater flexibility, and proposed a community assets scheme. In response to these policy drivers, partnership working in Brent had focussed on assessing what could be achieved collectively. Examples of successful partnership working included the employer partnership supply chain scheme, which helped local businesses to access opportunities presented by projects such as the development of the new civic centre, and the creation and implementation of the cultural strategy for Brent, which aimed to raise Brent’s profile. Joanna McCormick noted that the Cultural Strategy had now been endorsed by the Partners for Brent Strategic Forum.
Turning to the subject of current challenges for Partnership Working, Joanna McCormick advised that an issue of particular significance was the changing nature of the local authority’s relationship with the voluntary sector. Whilst a heightened role was envisaged for the voluntary sector in the delivery of public services, it was noted that many voluntary organisations would have been adversely affected by the cuts to public spending. It was highlighted to the committee that it would be important to ensure that any tensions caused by these circumstances were mitigated and that the council acted to align its approach by providing one point of contact for voluntary sector organisations. The council was currently acting to support the development of a new council for voluntary service (CVS Brent) following the closure of BRAVA. CVS Brent would aid effective communication between the voluntary sector and the council and, where the voluntary sector assumed this role, would help to align service delivery. A further challenge to Partnership Working was the extent of organisational change both within the council and partner organisations. It was acknowledged that with changing contacts, the relationship between the council and its partners could be adversely affected and work was currently being conducted to mitigate this.
Joanna McCormick briefly outlined a number of partnership projects which had been established to meet joint objectives for the borough including tackling fuel poverty, worklessness, housing issues and child poverty. Examples of these projects included the development of a strategy deal with the impact of fuel poverty on the borough; a partnership between the job centre plus and the College for North West London to support individuals in to vocational courses, rather than academic courses, as it had been found that the former could lead to more sustainable work prospects, and; a community safety project which co-ordinated support from a range of different services for repeat callers or victims to achieve more effective outcomes for those individuals. With regard to child poverty in the borough, Joanna McCormick advised that a significant amount of research had been conducted on this issue and currently 34.1% of children within Brent lived in poverty. It was further noted that other data sets could be used to better illustrate this issue including statistics on overcrowding, those not in education, employment or training (NEET), domestic violence, pressure on school places and those claiming benefits. It was noted for instance that the number of women claiming Job Seekers Allowance had doubled since 2009.
Selecting ‘health and well-being’ as a joint objective to discuss in-depth with the committee, Joanna McCormick highlighted that there was on going and widespread change in this area. Under the Health and Social Care Bill, Primary Care Trusts (PCTs) would be abolished and replaced by Clinical Commissioning Groups by April 2013 and the public health function would transfer to local authorities. To prepare for these changes the Brent Shadow Health and Well Being board had been established and would monitor further changes to this area. Alongside joint commissioning for social care and the health services, the council and its partners were exploring options for further integration of these services.
Joanna McCormick concluded her presentation by detailing two key developments relating to the pooling of resources. The first of these was the establishment of an intelligence hub for Brent, in order to improve the evidence base for partnership working projects and ensure a consistent use of the data by the council and its partners. The second key development was the progress of community based budgeting which national government envisaged could use collective agency resources at several possible levels including borough-wide, at neighbourhood level and on family by family basis. Following 16 initial ‘complex family’ pilot schemes, the Department for Communities and Local Government was expanding the scheme to an additional 50 local authorities for 2011-12. Joanna McCormick advised that once further details were released regarding the bidding process, Brent was hoping to pursue this. She further advised that the success of the Community Based Budgeting pilots had been twofold; it had improved the collective understanding of the resources available between partners and had allowed responses to be co-ordinated at a strategic level. Community Based Budgeting led to better outcomes for families which presented with a range of issues such as substance misuse, domestic violence, poor school attendance, worklessness and mental health issues. The pilot schemes had demonstrated that in presenting a cohesive set of responses to meet the needs of complex families, possibly coordinated via a key worker, the overall cost was reduced whilst the outcomes were improved. In developing a similar approach in Brent, a number of issues to consider had been in reviewing the schemes, including in particular, the question of how ‘complex families’ would be defined.
Several issues were raised during members’ discussion. Councillor Harrison queried how a co-ordinated response for a family might be triggered. Joanna McCormick advised that existing referral routes could be used, with professionals from a range of related services being appropriately trained to understand what constituted a complex family. Referrals from such professionals would be passed to a team who would then examine the circumstances of that family. Cathy Tyson advised that a critical component of the scheme was the provision of early intervention and preventative services. She emphasised that the scheme envisaged the co-ordination of services already provided by the council and its partners. The better targeting of these services to prevent further escalation of the issues experienced by a family also represented a financial incentive for the council. In response to a query from Councillor Clues, Joanna McCormick advised that there was a level of ambiguity regarding central government’s definition of community based budgets and in particular, the definition of ‘community’. She added that ‘community’ could for instance relate to geographical area, a local authority boundary or even to a group of residents affected by particular issues. . Cathy Tyson added that community budgets also represented a step by central government in creating a distance between itself and local government spending. This followed other steps such as the removal of ringfenced grants via the Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR) and the proposal that local government retain business rates for use in its area. Councillor Hirani sought further details as to how the council would work with its partners to produce a multiagency response. Joanna McCormick advised that the council would build on its already significant experience of working with its partners in this way. Ultimately, it would depend on how the drive for community budgets from central government proceeded. The Chair sought additional information on how the objectives for joint working between the council and the range of partner agencies would be set. Joanna McCormick advised that joint objectives for the borough were agreed by Partners for Brent. The Chair further commented that the council worked with a wide range of partners and that these relationships could be expressed via complex arrangements. Cathy Tyson explained that some partnerships were driven by necessity and some by opportunity.
The Chair requested that an update be provided to the committee on the community based budgets in the spring of 2012.
RESOLVED: -
That the verbal report be noted.