Contact your Parish Council

110412 PWB CM UPDATE APPENDIX A

Interview with the Cabinet Member for Community Services � priorities and outcomes for the year

Portfolio Priorities for 2010-11 were:

� Improve social, economic and environmental outcomes for communities in priority areas.

� Improve the health of people living in the borough and reduce health inequalities

� Make people feel safer where they live.

� Engage communities so people have the opportunity to participate and have a real say in what happens in their local areas.

In July 2010, the Borough Council restructured its social inclusion team, including the roles of the Healthy Lifestyles Co-ordinator, Community Planning, Arts Development, Sports and Play and Youth Development teams into a single delivery and commissioning arm, the Community Development team. This team is part of a new Community Partnerships section that is responsible for developing and implementing the Sustainable Community Strategy and managing the Local Strategic Partnership (LSP) and its delivery groups. A restructure of the existing Community Safety Unit is currently underway and aims to further streamline the Community Partnerships service and the way the Borough Council delivers and commissions its community cohesion and development programme.

Since 2009, the health prevention work undertaken by the Borough Council�s Community Development team has been funded externally by the Primary Care Trust. The funding supports a programme of healthy weight, mental health, wellbeing and community cohesion. In 2010/11, �158,093.88 was allocated to Maidstone Borough Council to deliver services for the Maidstone Borough Prevention Strategy. 60% of this budget was to deliver healthy weight programmes to tackle obesity for both adults and families in the locality. The remaining 40% was to deliver wellbeing and community based programmes including:

� Older people and vulnerable adults wellbeing and mental health

� Younger people wellbeing and mental health

At the half year, 127 people had participated on the weight loss programmes or 37% of the whole year target. Projections for the end of year are that 86% of the target of 320 participants will be achieved. However, while numbers are lower than anticipated � particularly at the leisure centre � weight loss outcomes for those participating are being achieved. Given that the programme started late these are positive figures. Families with children identified with weight problems have been able to access a specific programme, with referrals from local GP�s, occupational health, school nurses and the hospital. Mental health and wellbeing for older people has been addressed by the provision of a counselling service for the over 50�s in partnership with Age Concern and Brighter Futures and MIND co-ordinate the project which provided qualified counsellors throughout the borough.

Following on from Community Development�s funding evaluation and future options report, submitted to the Primary Care Trust in December 2010, further funding of �154,100 has been agreed for the period 2011/12.

The Community Development team is updating its strategy to support new and existing programmes, which are well established and have a strong focus on achieving positive health outcomes whether it is to increase physical activity such as the Hotfoot play scheme and sports camp or the objectives of the new town centre Switch youth caf� which are to make interventions to address sexual health, smoking, drinking and drugs. The strategy will also address a range of youth diversionary activities to address anti-social behaviour by young people, to promote positive behaviour by young people and avoid them becoming victims of crime.

Through the Maidstone Local Strategy Partnership (LSP), I have supported two priority issues, domestic abuse and road safety (killed and seriously injured).

The costs and impact of domestic abuse are significant in both financial and human terms. Using the latest available data, Maidstone currently has the fourth (of 12) highest total numbers of domestic violence incidents in the county. Repeat victim (people who experience more than one incidence of domestic violence) numbers in Maidstone are also the fourth highest in the county and are higher than the Kent average.

The costs and impact of road collisions (killed and seriously injured) are significant in both financial and human terms. Maidstone is a large district in size with the majority of crashes located in the town centre and arterial routes leading to and from the town. Maidstone has amongst the highest population (total) for any district in Kent. Maidstone had the highest number of casualties in all Kent roads in 2009 (705). The number of killed and seriously injured (KSI) was 64 in 2009. Although figures are decreasing, they are still amongst the highest in the county. Maidstone has recorded a high proportion of people travelling to work by car and this is reflected in the statistics, as the district again recorded the highest number of car user casualties in 2009 (510). Maidstone has also recorded the highest number of 17-24 year old casualties in the last 3 years and an increased number of child casualties over the same period. Crashes involving 17-24 year old casualties are spread throughout the district, when looking specifically at the 15 KSI crashes these are split evenly between the built up and no build up areas, 47% occurred on 30mph roads.

Powered two wheeler crashes in Maidstone make up 10% of the county�s total. Whilst there are a high number of P2W crashes in the Maidstone town centre, they are also located on the strategic routes into/out of the town centre, particularly the A20, A229 and A274.

To support these priority issues, two LSP stakeholder events have been held in the borough in the past quarter attracting more than 130 attendees. A series of recommendations were made as a result of these events and are being actioned through the LSP�s Safer Maidstone Partnership delivery group.

The priority actions for Domestic Abuse are:

� mapping current domestic abuse services in the borough to identify gaps and opportunities for commissioning/decommissioning and redirecting resources

� setting out requirements to ensure effective domestic services based on best practice are in place across the borough

� making links to services and processes identified as best practice

� provision of a One Stop Shop in Maidstone

� implementing a standard risk assessment form to be used by all agencies

� improving how agencies share information to avoid gaps/duplication

� improving early intervention

� identifying and redirecting resources to make better use of voluntary sector

� signing up all relevant partners within the LSP to increase targets on all cases

� identifying and redirecting resources for tackling repeat offenders

� improving and providing ongoing training for practitioners

� launching a domestic abuse website

� ensuring domestic abuse is acknowledged as a crime

The priority actions for Road Safety (KSIs) are:

� Review the actions and recommendations outlined in the �Fit for the Road� Maidstone Road Safety Review, published by the Borough Council in 2009

� Proactively target young drivers and drivers of two-wheeled vehicles

� Encourage LSP partners to promote road safety amongst their employees

� Promote compulsory road safety education

� Engage with the business community (which often includes young drivers)

� Develop a joint action plan with partners

� Develop a joint communications and community engagement strategy with partners

� Focus campaigns on discouraging drink driving and using mobile phones

� Create a bespoke problem profile on KSI�s in the Maidstone borough

� Seek �buy in� from the hospitals, A&E, Primary Care Trust and GPs

� Support young driver training

In October, the Borough Council undertook a review of the Borough Council�s Service Level Agreements with the voluntary and community sector to evaluate how their funding has been used, whether the services provided on the council�s behalf have met their objectives and what outcomes have been achieved and; to consult individually with each organisation to discuss the Government�s spending review decision (announced in November 2010) and the anticipated reductions in the central government grant to local authorities. Overall, the council expected to make overall cost savings of between 20-25%, with the funding to all 13 voluntary and community organisations not being immune to reductions. All organisations were invited to individually feedback into the review and consultation. As most service level agreements are due to begin the first year of their new contract on 1 April 2011, this has allowed the council to work with each organisations to negotiate changes to the services provided within the contracts to reflect the reductions in funding.

Negotiations are currently underway to upgrade the MBC CCTV system and I have decided that it should be put out to tender, having listened to the views of all the stakeholders involved.

I am also in consultation with Parish Councils to review the system for administering Concurrent Functions.