Agenda item

To receive any verbal updates from Partners and Community Groups present, including:

·         Police – Neighbourhood Teams

·         Fire & Rescue

To note the following written updates attached to the agenda:

a)    Police

b)    Wiltshire Council Items for Information

c)    Wilton Town Team minutes

Note: Speakers are reminded that they each have a 3 minutes slot, unless they have previously discussed alternative arrangements with the Community Area Manager.

Police – Inspector Dave Minty

The Board noted the written update for the Wilton community Area.

Inspector Minty then gave an update to the Board. Structural Changes would reduce the current tiers of management; there would be no new Chief Inspectors. The new Superintendant for Salisbury, Warminster and Amesbury was Charlie Armstrong, Inspector Noble was moving to a new post, working under her.

A new scheme which was being trialled by Beat Managers would provide more of an insight into possible causes of local trends, to enable resources to be used where needed most.

A new candidate would be appointed shortly to the vacant Community Beat Managers post in Tisbury.

Questions and comments received included:

·       When would the PCSO in Wilton be replaced? Answer: There was PCSO and PC recruitment taking place at present.

·       There were volunteers for the CSW scheme who needed training before they could begin, however training was only currently being offered at Devizes. Could training be brought out to the villages? Those volunteers already trained could provide the training to new volunteers in 20 minutes; it did not require a two hour training session. Answer: Inspector Minty would take a message back to Inspector Steve Cox, who was involved with the CSW scheme.

·       When would the new Officer for Tisbury appear? Answer: There was a 28 day notice period from his previous post; he would be in place within the next couple of weeks.

Fire – Mike Franklin

The standard written update was currently not available due to an issue with IT software, it was hoped that the problem would be resolved and a report would be available in time for the next meeting.

Wiltshire Fire and Rescue (WFRS) had been in discussions with the Dorset Fire and Rescue Service, to look at possibilities for a joint working relationship. WFRS had a shortfall in budget of between £3.1 million to £3.9 million which had to be resolved by 2018. They had appraised their options and put forward a business case to combine the Wiltshire and Dorset authorities, on which a decision would be made in September 2014. A consultation would take place between 16 June 2014 and 24 August 2014 which would include the public, police and council. This would be promoted through their website, social media and press and a helpline would be set up.

Comments and questions were then received, these included:

·       The briefing provided informs of a business plan being drawn up between Dorset and Wiltshire. If there was going to be a consultation would there be a second option. Nothing in the statement indicated that there had been any consideration of a merger with Wiltshire Council.

·       The benefits of merging one Fire Service with another are far greater due to the similarities between both services, than merging it with a council, which would be minimal.

Youth – Jaki Farrell, Youth Development Co-ordinator Mere & Tisbury

Jaki read the following statement:

As you will be aware the past few months had been a real period of uncertainty for everyone involved in youth work in Wiltshire. The young people had been actively engaging in the consultation over the review of positive activities for young people and their presentation at the last Area Board meeting demonstrated that.  Since the last meeting there had been developments with regards to the review and Cabinet had agreed to adopt an amended community led model of delivery. There would be a briefing paper going out to all elected members in due course but the key messages from the Head of IYS about the outcome of the review were as follows:

·        The Council would be retaining 18 professionally qualified youth workers in the new role of Community Youth Officer. Each Area Board would have one post, recognising that some Area Boards cover more than one Community Area. These roles would provide some direct delivery but the main focus was to support and enable the local community to meet the needs of their young people either through providing guidance and support to volunteers or local voluntary organisations who wish to provide services to young people. They would be the ‘go to’ person for each AB area.

·       There would be 3 Youth Support Workers to act as caseworkers for young people who had identified additional needs. It was likely these posts would be based in the 3 hubs of Chippenham, Salisbury, and Trowbridge. We would have to identify a referral method for these posts so that other partners e.g. Gateway Panel, schools could signpost relevant young people to these workers.

·       There would be changes to Bridging Projects. The Council remain committed to providing young people with disabilities the same opportunities as other young people but we would have to create a new model. The intention was to commission these with the support of the Wiltshire Parents Carers Network and it was acknowledge that there would be a possible gap from when we stop delivering the service and the new provider steps in. We would do all we could to minimise any disruption but we would need to acknowledge there may be some disruption which I know concerns you as many of the young people who attend the Bridging Projects needed more time to adjust to change. This element was a top priority in terms of implementation.

·       The proposals would mean that all Assistant Youth Workers would be offered voluntary redundancy as the money which paid for these posts would be transferred to Area Boards so that they could decide locally on the priorities for their young people. This would be based on assessment of local need and advice/support for the allocated Community Youth Officer. Council policy states that any Council member of staff made voluntarily redundant cannot be re-employed by the council (which includes Area Boards) for a period of 12 months. The emphasis would be on VCS and communities to recruit the staff required to meet locally identified need.

·       It had not yet been confirmed how much each Area Board would receive for positive activities.

·       There would be interim arrangements for Spark, DoE,  admin and youth work management but for most admin colleagues there would not be opportunities with the revised structure although clearly there may be redeployment opportunities across the Council

·       As of 1 October 2014 we need to be clear that the Council would not be providing youth workers based in local youth development centres as at present, so delivery would change in respect of the context of the new operating model. We would work with individual community areas to determine which centres would close and when. Where alternative provision and providers could be identified, the Council had committed to ensuring that there would be alternative facilities in each area.

Despite all the uncertainty we had continued to deliver our services with our usual level of commitment although the current process was presenting us with some logistical challenges e.g. we were unable to recruit new youth workers so when a member of staff leaves or is off sick we have had to manage the gaps that were created. A significant number of sessions were running with a member of staff down, often meaning a youth worker was on their own at a session. Credit must go to the young people we work with as they understood that we were trying to keep things open for them and they know that they need to be helpful, respectful and well behaved otherwise the sessions simply could not run. Our existing staff team was small and everyone was doing their absolute best in challenging times. These restrictions on recruitment had also meant that we were unable to advertise for a youth worker for Zeals Youth Trust and therefore they were not yet able to re-establish their youth provision.

The monthly LGBT & Q group had begun running, albeit with fairly small numbers at the moment, but these isolated young people were coming together to share their experiences and were getting a good level of peer support. They were discussing ways of increasing their membership as well as looking at issues.

The SWWYAG were in the process of organising a cricket fun day which would take place on Saturday 14 June in Tisbury. They were hoping this would increase the membership of the local cricket clubs and provide an opportunity for older and young people to come together. They were also planning a BBQ and had the swimming pool booked for an early evening session. 

We continue to deliver the Leisure Credits scheme across South West Wiltshire in partnership with the local charity Seeds4Success and good progress had been made on improving rights of way in Sedgehill and Semley as well as Mere with the support of local volunteers and the WC Rights of Way team. It was clear that there were numerous footpaths across the area that required a team of motivated young people to come out and assist with clearance or restoration! As well as gaining credits for reward activities young people involved in this project were also gaining certificates through ASDAN and V.

We were now in the final month of recruitment for the summer National Citizen Service which was for young people in school years 11 & 12. There were a few spaces left on the local team which was shaping up to be a great group of young people. They would take part in two residential experiences, various training courses as well as planning and delivering a social action project.

It was important to recognise the level of support and encouragement that as a team we have received from the local communities as well as the Area Board at a time that was particularly challenging to us all and thank you for that. The young people we work with had remained positive throughout the review process but as messages about decisions were getting out they had began to lose hope in retaining the service they so clearly valued. If people had thoughts and ideas that could enable the new delivery model to work locally please contact us.   

Questions and comments were then received, these included:

·       Would the Spark site go ahead? Answer: No, there would be a review of the site.

·       What was the future of the Wilton Youth Centre? Answer: It was unknown.

·       The level of youth service in the SWW community areas was very good; we do not want to see it dwindled down to that of other areas.

·       A charity in Wilton had offered to pay for volunteers. Answer: Could the details of this be sent to Cllr Wayman?

Wiltshire Council Item for Information – Public Health & Wellbeing Grant

The Board noted the information attached to the agenda. The Community Area Manager agreed to find out whether Town and Parish councils could apply for the grant.

Action: CAM to feedback whether Town & Parish councils could apply for the grant.

Wilton Town Team minutes

The Board noted the minutes of the 14 April 2014 as attached to the agenda.