Agenda item

To consider the report of the Assistant Chief Executive - report circulated.

Councillor Hannaford attended the meeting and spoke on this item having given notice under Standing Order No. 44. He declared a personal interest as a member of the Exwick Community Association.

Councillor Mitchell declared an interest as he lived in one of the pilot areas.

The Community Inclusion and Engagement Officer presented the report on progress with the Council’s 18 month Neighbourhood Engagement Pilot launched in June 2007 aimed at increasing citizenship participation at neighbourhood level in four areas in the City -  Exwick, St. David’s, Newtown/Polsloe and Kings Heath/Clyst Heath. Each area was working on establishing a partnership of local people, local Councillors, Council officers, police officers and other invited representatives. Each partnership had a brief to identify local issues for addressing by a range of agencies and had been allocated an initial budget of £5,000 per area. They would be able to decide on the use of small grants for local initiatives to improve the neighbourhood. 

Councillor Hannaford spoke on progress with the initiative in the Exwick area. It was a large area with a number of isolated residential streets making the development of an overall sense of community difficult. Although a lot of consultative work had been undertaken, he sought a greater focus on action and capacity building especially around the Exwick Community Association. On raising issues such as litter, condition of play areas, general cleanliness etc. he had been advised by City Council officers that some action could not be taken due to a lack of resources. The County Council’s Exeter Committee were supportive of the pilot. He suggested a greater focus on engaging social housing landlords and hard to reach groups. He referred to Exeter Community Initiative run workshops in 2004 for the Farm Hill Residents Association and suggested that there was a danger of consultation fatigue.

Another Member referred to the problems associated with the Exwick area surrounding Wessex RFC and difficulties in engaging local youths. A regular youth club with mentoring for young people would be of great value. She also suggested head hunting community leaders. Another Member suggested a focus on developing support for youth facilities with another Member stating that this was the County Council’s responsibility.

The Community Inclusion and Engagement Officer stated that much work to date in Exwick had involved initial community outreach with a number of public meetings having already taken place, although the geography of some areas made it difficult for those without transport to attend meetings. Analysis of each area depicted the varying degrees of success of current and future engagement work. Kings Heath, in particular, had been a real success with good support from local residents and with many partner agencies having been involved in picking up a number of local issues.

The Police had started on a process of promoting their community engagement work through the launch of the PACT (Partners and Community Together) and were aiming to have quarterly meetings in each locality to invite residents to share their concerns regarding community safety and to suggest improvements for the community. In the four My Neighbourhood areas, the Police were working in partnership with the City Council.

Local residents and existing community organisations had been targeted in the project with the aim of setting up partnership groups to develop future sustainability. Project workers progressed and monitored issues with the City Council, the Police and Stagecoach etc. This would enable tracking of the progress of issues and allow more effective feedback to be given back to the community on the outcome or status of an issue raised.  Efforts were also being made to involve social landlords.

Two Members remarked that the use of the existing community organisation, the St. David’s Neighbourhood Partnership (SDNP), could lead to the exclusion of other interested groups especially as the ward was very diverse. Grant distribution, for example, could be affected by differences of opinion between individuals. The use of surplus funding at the end of the pilot period was also questioned.

The Community Inclusion and Engagement Officer stated that the basis of administering the neighbourhood consultation groups, including the distribution of funds, had been agreed by a Steering Group comprising a cross party group of Local Councillors, Council officers and voluntary sector agencies. Local Councillors in the pilot areas had demonstrated support for the projects by regularly attending partnership meetings. In the SDNP example, grants were to be considered by a five member sub group including officer and Councillor representation and appropriate mechanisms were in place to ensure the fair distribution of grants. This included making sure the criteria was based on an agreed vision and aims for the area. Although £5,000 was a small figure, it was hoped it would be a useful participatory budgeting process that would be evaluated for future use.

A Councillor referred to the cost and rationale of circulating a leaflet and personal letter to every resident in the Newtown/Polsloe area seeking their views on how to spend their grant and to advise of a public meeting on 6 March and whether consideration had been given to utilising a company rather than direct post.Another Councillor confirmed that the Newtown Members had requested a direct mail drop to all residents. This had not utilised the £5,000 allocated to the area but had come from administrative expenses. He stated that 120 replies had been received with 180 suggestions but was concerned if expectations were being raised too high and whether there were sufficient funds to respond adequately. He believed that it was vital for Councillors to be fully engaged in the decision making process.

Another Councillor stated that the Citizen was an ideal mechanism for publicising the pilots but with greater prominence given to the articles.

The Community Inclusion and Engagement Officer confirmed that the letter to Newtown residents had been to alert the public to the £5,000 pot available and to invite suggestions for small schemes. She also stated that £50,000 had been used to contract with two voluntary sector organisations - Exeter Community Initiatives and Exeter CVS. They were developing and supporting local partnerships in addition to offering their existing services and resources to complement the project (e.g. funding, constitutional advice and training). 

Courses were being run to develop the skills and confidence of interested members of the public to become more involved in their communities by, for example, setting up resident associations and to understand how democracy works. There was concern however that the residents’ budgets for funding venue hire, refreshments and leaflets was diminishing.

The Director Community and Environment stated that requests from the public would be responded to via existing mechanisms such as those set up to deal with requests for dog bins. The pilot would be evaluated further in 2008 for a decision on the way forward to be made. It was important to note that as this was a pilot a variety of methods were being tested. She accepted that the Exwick area presented unique challenges despite dedicated community development workers having been funded to work in the area over a number of years.

A Councillor contrasted the difficulties experienced in some of the trial areas with Kings Heath, a new community, in need of support where the response had been very positive.

Further progress reports would be submitted to this Committee.

Scrutiny Committee - Community noted:-

(1)               progress in the Pilot; and

(2)               the review of activities in each of the Pilot areas.

(Report circulated)