The Area Board will receive an update on the Community Joint Strategic Needs Assessment (JSNA) from the Strategic Engagement and Partnerships Manager Andrew Jack. The Area Board will then agree its priority areas for the forthcoming year.
Minutes:
The Strategic Engagement and Partnerships Manager (SEPM), Andrew Jack, gave an overview of the findings of the Community Area Joint Strategic Needs Assessment (CAJSNA), before inviting the Area Board to consider their priorities for the forthcoming year.
The SEPM explained that the CAJSNA studied 140 different indicators grouped into 10 themes. It had combined information from the 2021 census with other information, including a survey of local people. The information from each of Wiltshire’s 18 Area Boards had been compared to help identify the different challenges that they faced. Key findings and challenges from the Royal Wootton Bassett and Cricklade area included:
· They had the highest change in population of any Area Board in Wiltshire, with an increase of 20.8 percent between 2011 and 2021, compared to the average change of eight percent.
· The largest proportional increase in claims for local welfare provision
· The highest proportion of pupils in schools with Special Educational Need support, at 17.5 percent, compared to the average of 14.6 percent.
· The third highest military population.
· The third highest levels of obesity amongst three- and four-year-olds.
· The third highest number of empty business premises.
· The fourth highest level of road traffic collisions.
The SEPM emphasised that the indicators shown were only areas where the Area Board had the highest, or close to the highest, figures and that they were far lower on the list in many other indictors. The issues highlighted were not included to paint the area in a negative way but to inform the priority setting and funding decisions taken by the Area Board. He highlighted that a full list of figures from the CAJSNA were available online.
Information was also provided about the priorities identified by members of the public in the community survey. The SEPM was pleased to report that Royal Wootton Bassett and Cricklade had had a higher-than-average response rate to its survey, having 290 responses out of a total on 2,690 across Wiltshire’s 18 Area Boards. The survey in Royal Wootton Bassett and Cricklade had included people from a range of ages with 41 percent of respondents being aged between 35 and 54, and 45 percent of responses coming from people aged 55 or older. The three most popular areas identified in the survey were health, the environment and children & young people, which were three of the Area Board’s priority areas chosen in 2023/34. The Area Board’s other priority areas from the previous year, the economy and older people, were selected as the eight and nineth most popular priorities in the survey.
During the discussion, the Area Board thanked the SEPM for his update and stated that they would encourage the figures in the report to be shared with the community, including local councils. In order to have more time to study the figures in detail, they agreed to defer a formal decision on setting their priority areas until the next meeting. It was noted that the Area Board would hold informal discussions and that lead members would continue to support their existing priority goals for the intervening period.