Agenda item

The Board received a report of the Strategic Director, Resources which provided information on the progress in achieving targets contained within the 2011 - 2016 Sustainable Community Strategy for Halton, and highlighted the annual “light touch” review of targets and measures.

The Board was advised that a new SCS (2011 – 26) had been approved by the Council on 20 April 2011.  The new Sustainable Community Strategy and its associated “living” 5 year delivery plan (2011-16), identified five community priorities that would form the basis of collective partnership intervention and action over the coming five years. The strategy was informed by and brought together national and local priorities and was aligned to other local delivery plans such as that of the Halton Children’s Trust. By being a “living” document it would provide sufficient flexibility to evolve as continuing changes within the public sector continued to emerge.

The Board was further advised that in response to legislative changes, Placeholder measures had also been included where new services were to be developed or new performance information was to be captured. Baselines for this would also be established in 2011/12 or 2012/13, against which future services would be monitored. The availability of information was currently being reviewed with partners.

It was reported that progress for the six month period April - September 2012, which included a summary of all indicators for the Safer Priority within the SCS was set out in Appendix 1 of the report.

Furthermore, an annual ‘light touch review‘ of targets contained within the SCS, had also been conducted to ensure that targets remained realistic over the 5 year plan to ‘close the gaps’ in performance against  regional and statistical neighbours. This review had been conducted through the Safer Halton Partnership with all Lead Officers being requested to review targets for 2013/14, 2014/15 and 2015/16. Targets, were appropriate had been updated. All SCS measures had been included in the medium term draft Communities Directorate Business Plan 2013-16.

The Board were also asked to consider the inclusion of any additional measures to the above set to “narrow gaps” in performance where appropriate or respond to legislative/ policy changes; thereby ensuring that all measures remain “fit for purpose”.

The Board noted that Schools Service Level Agreement (SLA) income would not be achieved due to a number of schools not signing up for the SLA. The Board agreed that the SLA represented good value for money and clarity was sought on what was being done to address this matter.  In response, it was reported that it could be as a result of the new Academies in the Borough. It was suggested that Councillors who were Governors of a school could be contacted if their school did not have an SLA in place to enable them to discuss it with their Governor colleagues.  It was reported that SLA’s were considered by the Governing Bodies annually and the Governing Body had a responsibility to ensure that the SLA delivered the best delivery and terms and conditions for the school.

The Board noted the confusion regarding The Bankfield School receiving a notification concerning Academy Status when it had not been applied for and the action being taken on this matter.

RESOLVED: That the report and comments raised be noted.