Agenda and minutes

The Joint Committee noted that apologies had been received from Councillor Munro, for whom Councillor Smith was substituting.  In addition, it was advised that Councillor Rankin would no longer be representing the Royal Borough of Windsor & Maidenhead.  Councillor Bicknell would be taking on the role he had previously held on the Joint Committee.

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

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

There were no declarations of interest.

There were no urgent items of business.

To approve the minutes of the last meeting held on 22 May 2018 and receive updates on any issues not covered elsewhere on the agenda.

RESOLVED that the minutes of the meeting of the Committee held on 22 May 2018 be approved as a correct record and signed by the Chairman.

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

Key Updates:-

•           Item 1 – Update From Central Team on Key Projects

•           Item 2 – Partner Updates

•           Item 3 - Performance and Funding

•           Item 4 – Future Plans

The Joint Committee considered a report providing an update on the Thames Valley Berkshire Elevate programme since its last meeting.

The report included:

•           An update from the Central Team on Key Projects

•           Partner Updates

•           An update on Performance and Funding

•           Future Plans

The topics covered included

•           Slough Project 1- A contract for £170,000 to engage and support 390 eligible young people into employment, education or training or to gain basic skills. With a particular focus of supporting those from an ethnic minority (B&ME) background.

•           Slough Project 2- A contract for £40,000 to engage and support 40 lone parents into education, employment or training.

•           Digital Marketing – Recruitment of a Digital Marketing Assistant, who, once in post, would provide some digital marketing training for Elevate staff so all partners could become more proactive in this area. Although only a temporary post, 40 applications had been received.

•           Employment is Everyone’s Business Project

•           Dynamic Purchasing System

Partner updates were included in the report from:

•           Bracknell Forest

•           The Prince’s Trust

•           Royal Borough of Windsor & Maidenhead

•           Adviza - Reading

•           Ways Into Work

•           West Berkshire Council

•           Wokingham Borough Council

•           Slough Borough Council

The reports were supported by some case studies.  Other points made during the discussion were that:

·                     The Office of National Statistics’ records showed that, in Bracknell Forest, 85 young people had signed up for job seekers allowance in the 18-24 age range.

·                     There were 25 NEETs in Bracknell Forest.

·                     Capacity was an issue so Bracknell Forest was engaging virtually with its partners, but the arrangement was remaining strong.

·                     West Berkshire was aiming to identify those who had not gone on to college  or work.

·                     Wokingham was close to achieving its target and was working out how to take the work forward.

·                     1% were unknown in Slough.

·                     There were 40 plus NEETs in the looked-after cohort in Slough.

With regard to performance, the Joint Committee was advised that:

•           The partnership had engaged 1624 young people since November 2015, of these 358 had been supported into employment education or training.

•           The partnership had already delivered against the disability target for the programme, supporting 488 participants who had declared a disability against a target of 280.

•           The partnership had supported 31 young people to gain basics skills; this was against a 3 year target of 24.

•           Good progress was being made against the ethnic minority target, as delivery of Slough Project 1 had made a positive start this would make a considerable contribution to this target being met.

The Joint Committee was advised that the current priorities were:

•           Ongoing work to ensure that evidence was collected for results where they had been achieved.

•           Work by all partners to ensure that the lone parents target was met, although the delivery which had begun in Slough by Kennedy Scott would make a considerable contribution to this target.

•           Continued effort to engage with eligible young  ...  view the full minutes text for item 18.

The next meeting of the Joint Committee will be held at 10.30am on Tuesday 21 May 2019, following the meeting of the Thames Valley Berkshire LEP Forum that morning..

With the project due to end of 30 June 2019, this should also be the last meeting of the Joint Committee.  However, if any issues arise between now and 21 May which require formal input from members, an additional meeting will be arranged.

The Joint Committee was advised that its next meeting would be held at 10.30am on Tuesday 21 May 2019, following the meeting of the Thames Valley Berkshire LEP Forum that morning..

With the project due to end of 30 June 2019, this should also be the last meeting of the Joint Committee.  However, if any issues arose between this meeting and 21 May which required formal input from members, an additional meeting would be arranged.  In addition, the meeting on 21 May 2019 would determine whether there was a need for a further meeting.