Agenda item

A presentation concerning Neighbourhood Partnerships is being prepared for this item and will be made at the meeting by the Service Director of Neighbourhoods and Communities (Di Robinson).

Di Robinson (Service Director – Neighbourhoods and Communities) gave a verbal presentation on a Position Statement for Neighbourhood Partnerships. During this presentation, she made the following points:

(1)        The current arrangements for Bristol Neighbourhood Partnerships for making decisions through devolved budgets was set out;

(2)        Details of how the £1.1 Million budget is spent were given;

(3)        Different academic governance models were given, including traditional, border straddling and complimentary;

(4)        Different citizen engagement models operating across the country were given, as follows: No Known Activity, Network Activity Without Resource (ie Liverpool, Torbay), Forums working with Councillors and partners (ie North Tyneside, Leicester, Newham), Bodies With Shared Councillor/Community Input (ie Lewisham, Tower Hamlets and Wiltshire), Neighbourhood Partnerships with Devolved Neighbourhood Budgets and Section 106 Budgets (Bristol, Edinburgh), Neighbourhood Partnerships with real devolved powers including SLAs (waste, young people, parks, residents) (ie Leeds);

(5)        The views of different stakeholders were noted;

(6)        What is working with the current NP model – collaborative approach, empowering Councillors to deliver, NPs acting as a link between the Council and the citizen, the role of the Neighbourhood Plan in making services more accountable, engagement with local residents, providing a mechanism to support grassroots projects;

(7)        What is not working with the current NP model – seen as too closely linked to the Council and too meeting-based, failure to see work that takes place outside of meetings, too many top down requests for resources, NP budgets applied equally across the city and not allied to local need, little change with decision-making despite ring fencing, assumption that NPs only discuss low level neighbourhoods issues rather than strategic issues, lack of engagement from certain key Departments, under engagement with the BME community and under 50, time and/or failure to respond to NP requests, limited devolution for NPs and they are not a statutory consultee, limited staffing capacity to deliver NP requests, opinion often requested too late in the process to significantly influence it;

(8)        There will be a Cabinet discussion led by Councillor Asher Craig in the next 3 to 4 weeks to discuss their priorities for this area of work in the future;

(9)        Scrutiny had expressed the intention to timetable further discussions into their Work Programme to discuss the way forward.

Councillors made the following comments and officers responded to these as follows:

(10)      Councillor Craig (Cabinet Member – Neighbourhoods) advised that the following Councillors had put their names forward to discuss how to drive this process forward: Eleanor Combley, Carole Johnson, Jon Wellington and Nicola Beech. The Chair (Councillor Anthony Negus) asked whether consideration could be given to representation from other Groups (ie Conservative and Liberal Democrats) and indicated that he was happy to also be involved;

(11)      CIL funding is a big factor is a big factor in this issue. The need for funding to be equally shared was crucial to interface properly with the community;

(12)      A lot of NPs had carried out work on governance – officers needed to consult with them as part of this process. However, it was noted that not all NPs had a Governance Agreement and it might be that a discussion was required with each of them;

(13)      It was disproportionate to pay other groups to carry out work which could be run for cheaper with individuals and/or voluntary groups – this would be more consistent with the principles of NPs and more democratic. Officers pointed out that there were some NPs who took exactly the opposite approach. Therefore, a blanket model may not be appropriate. Instead, a model operating under certain broad principles was likely to be a better option;

(14)      Whilst some NPs managed their assets almost completely, others did not. It would be important to take this into account and to share the best practice of NPs in this area;

(15)      The role of Active Engagement needed to be carefully considered. It was important that a “one size fits all” approach should not be adopted. However, interaction with the grassroots was important to assess an NP’s core needs. It was also important in fostering a sense of community within areas;

(16)      Empowerment was an important factor to consider in this issue, particularly in respect of those facing isolation and with mental health issues.

The Cabinet Member for Neighbourhoods confirmed that discussions would be taking place shortly concerning the best approach for involving Neighbourhood Partnerships. The Strategic Director for Neighbourhoods also confirmed that officers would look at where the involvement of the Neighbourhoods Scrutiny Commission to feed into the process at appropriate points is required.

Action: Alison Comley (in conjunction with the Cabinet Member for Neighbourhoods as appropriate) to provide a timeline for how the Neighbourhoods Scrutiny Commission will be involved in feeding into the decision-making process on this issue.