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Voscur Reps Reports - November 2006

What’s New with the Bristol Partnership


The Government Office South West (GOSW) have completed the review of the Bristol Partnership (BP) and once more given it an 'amber/green' status. Apparently there is no 'amber' status in the scale, which highlights a possible flaw in the scale. Even so, it's still best to be on the green side rather than the red. With any public sector review, the details are pretty laborious and the scoring open to any amount of subjective challenge. Even so, there was some concern voiced by members of the partnership that, for example, the imposition of a 20% crime reduction target across the board had made it impossible to acknowledge some of the successes in this area, and that the Partnership’s performance had been 'marked down' because of this. In response, GOSW will be reviewing their scoring and targets in the future, hoping to make them more 'neighbourhood focused'.

The Partnership’s own improvement plan was also discussed. GOSW was pleased with the content of the plan and Partners have been asked to submit any further comments, suggestions and thoughts to the BP management group. In summary, the BP continues to move forward, endeavouring to negotiate the many outside influences from central government and elsewhere. The outside influences and requirements are, I am sure, based on some rationale, but at times they can seem remote. This can sometimes make it challenging for all partners to feel equally involved in how the Partnership progresses.

The November session, to be led by IDeA (a central government-based agency that assists local authorities and communities in developing relations and best practice: visit www.idea.gov.uk to find out more), will aim to address concerns expressed by some partners, that it sometimes appears that decisions are made outside the Partnership meetings and that the items discussed at the Partnership meetings are not always the most appropriate. The away day will also help to guide the Partnership as it adapts to the needs of the Local Area Agreement and other initiatives.

The BP has a complex structure of action groups, management groups, theme groups and delivery groups, and it is being suggested that many of these groups change their terms of reference or cease to exist in their present form altogether. The debate over how this might actually happen has been picking up steam over the summer, and will come to a conclusion in the next few months. Changes and redesigns have happened a number of times before and some might be tempted to suggest that we don't hold our breath this time. However, for once I feel optimistic, since this time we might build on sufficiently substantial foundations to maintain forward momentum.

Simon Bale
Voscur Rep to the Bristol Partnership

 

 

Local Area Agreement (LAA) Update


The first draft of Bristol’s LAA was submitted to the Government Office South West (GOSW) at the end of September. Meanwhile negotiations are continuing to determine the final version of the LAA. The final LAA must be submitted to the Government by the end of December 2006. When approved the three-year agreement will come into effect in April 2007.

The LAA will be set out to cover four blocks:

  • Economic development and enterprise.
  • Children and young people.
  • Healthier communities and older people.
  • Safer and stronger communities.


Many of the outcomes already identified in the LAA were featured in the September/October Voscur newsletter. In addition to the mandatory outcomes (set by government) in the LAA, there are non-mandatory outcomes and a number of 'reward' targets where Bristol will have the opportunity to earn a Performance Reward Grant if particularly tough 'stretch' targets are met in three years time. Two overall priorities have been identified which will help assist in identifying non-mandatory outcomes and ‘stretch’ targets, these are:

  • Learning and achievement for children and young people and their families.
  • Reducing inequalities in health and well being, with a particular focus on being safe and older people.

Throughout 2006, Voscur and the Change Up consortium have held a number of events with voluntary, community and social enterprise (vcse) sector groups to gather their input into the LAA. A number of useful recommendations, comments and suggestions from vcse groups have been presented to the lead officers for each block of the LAA . An initial response has been received and can be viewed on the partnership page of the Voscur website (www.voscur.org/bp). This identifies where vcse sector input has resulted in additional LAA outputs and indicators and outlines why other comments have not been actions.
Further feedback will be given on how the things not included in the LAA will be taken forward. Work is continuing on this – watch this space!