Agenda and draft minutes

Venue: Stratus - 100 Longwater Avenue, Green Park, Reading, RG2 6GP. View directions

Contact: Derek Morgan  01344 352044

Items
No. Item

1.

Election of Chairman

Minutes:

RESOLVED that Councillor Stuart Munro be elected Chairman of the Joint Committee.

 

2.

Appointment of Vice-Chairman

Minutes:

RESOLVED that Councillor Jo Lovelock be appointed Vice-Chairman of the Joint Committee.

3.

Declarations of Interest

Members are asked to declare any personal or disclosable pecuniary interest in respect of any matter to be considered at this meeting.

 

Any Member with a Disclosable Pecuniary Interest in a matter should withdraw from the meeting when the matter is under consideration and should notify the Democratic Services Officer in attendance that they are withdrawing as they have such an interest. If the Disclosable Pecuniary Interest is not entered on the register of Members interests the Monitoring Officer must be notified of the interest within 28 days.

Minutes:

There were no declarations of interest.

4.

Minutes and Matters Arising pdf icon PDF 258 KB

To approve the minutes of the last meeting held on 24 January 2017.

 

NB:      Members may also wish to refer to the papers circulated for the proposed meeting on 7 July 2017 which was subsequently cancelled:

 

https://democratic.bracknell-forest.gov.uk/ieListMeetings.aspx?CId=658&Year=0

 

Minutes:

RESOLVED that the minutes of the meeting of the Committee held on 24 January  2017 be approved as a correct record and signed by the Chairman.

 

Due to the number of new members a short presentation was given which reaffirmed the reasons for the collective programme.

 

It was fed back to members that the Elevate Programme had allowed for a more holistic way of working. positive changes within the system and progress since 2013, along with collective working had resulted in better outcomes for young people within Berkshire.

 

The Joint Committee was reminded that the programme had been set a collective output of engaging with 3,380 young people and a collective result of 43% on the overarching outcome target. Each partner had been assigned output and result targets, that collectively met the collective programme targets. The collective targets had been indicatively profiled over 3 years.

 

 

5.

Urgent Items of Business

Any other items which, pursuant to Section 100B(4)(b) of the Local Government Act 1972, the Chairman decides are urgent.

Minutes:

There were no urgent items of business.

6.

Elevate Berkshire - ESF Update pdf icon PDF 3 MB

To provide the Joint Committee with an update on the Elevate Berkshire European Social Fund Programme.

 

Key Updates:-

 

           Item 1 - General Update

           Item 2 - Performance and Funding (each partner to give an update)

           Item 3 - Project Change Request

           Item 4 -  ESF Compliance (Article 125)

           Item 5 - Sustainability of the Elevate brand and model

Minutes:

The Joint Committee received an update on the pan-Berkshire Elevate programme by way of a presentation from Paul Gresty.

The Joint Committee’s attention was drawn to the following key successes:

  • The Collective Elevate Programme had been subject to a successful Article 125 Audit on the 17 and 18 May 2017. 

 

  • System change and centralised Elevate system - Elevate had been the catalyst for conversations around the operational delivery of skills and employment activity and instrumental in culture change.

 

  •  Co-location of key partners - partners were now working together for mutual benefit and the partnership was growing as providers began to realise the value of being associated with something that had the capacity to draw down money.

 

  • BASE project – the pan-Berkshire project focusing on employment for young people with disabilities.

 

  • Elevate Brand – the Elevate brand was growing locally with visits by senior Civil Service leads and the Head of the ESF.

 

  • Referral/Caseworker Model - Elevate had implemented a new person-centred pathway; whereby services delivered by the partners were wrapped around the individual via the holistic Elevate service.

 

  • Central project management system and ESF workshops - the central team had been working with partners to operationalise compliance considerations.

 

  • Partnership Working - Elevate continued to build a culture of collaboration amongst partners who were seeing the added value of working together)

 

  • Project sustainability and aspiration to deliver an ageless Elevate Berkshire model using Elevate as the vehicle.

 

  • Good News Stories – had been provided in Appendix A of the report and demonstrated the positive impact the programme was having on some of the people that it had supported to date,

 

The Joint Committee welcomed the links with the LEP and Building Better Opportunities (BBO) in East Berkshire. Working together had ensured a better understanding of the governance arrangements however the Joint Committee were reminded that this was not legal body status as the LEP only informed the specification for BBO and the investment strategies.  The LEP had four programme groups, one of which was the Delivery Group, which aimed to have an overview and to co-ordinate all projects, along with identifying any crossovers that may occur. This was not a governance structure.

The Joint Committee raised concerns that West Berkshire seemed better at collaborative working than East Berkshire, as West Berkshire were linking projects together with other agencies.

Concerns were also raised  by the Chair about the attendance of Members at the Joint Committee, as in the last year one meeting had been inquorate and one had been cancelled due to few attendees.  Somehow attendance needed to be improved and communication within Local Authorities about the role of the Members on the Committee needed to be clearer.

In January 2017 the Joint Committee had been updated on individual and collective performance. The Joint Committee noted DWP had been concerned about the under-performance and had refused to agree a revised set of outputs and results.  Members noted that partners had not delivered the necessary performance improvements since the January 2017 Committee.  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6.

 

Contact Information

Democratic services

Email: committee@bracknell-forest.gov.uk