My report to Council

Posted By: Mohammad Sharif
Date Posted: 19/10/2009

Thank you Mr Mayor for the opportunity to report to the Council the latest developments on various matters relating to the Regeneration & Community Cohesion Portfolio.

REGENERATION & RENEWAL

Lower Falinge In Focus

Spiral dance have started their Folkways Community Cohesion Project which includes a specific element relating to Lower Falinge looking at issues such as belonging, community and home.

The Joint Police Base/RBH Priority Area Team One Shop officially opened on Lower Falinge in July. The launch of this was marked by a neighbourhood Fun Day on 18th July.

SPECIAL PROJECTS

Rochdale
Construction of the Wardleworth Health Centre remains on programme.

Middleton
Tesco are aiming to open their Superstore in Spring 2010 and site works are well underway.

Heywood

The Joint Service Centre (Pheonix Centre ) is now complete and should be operational in October 2009.

COMMUNITY AFFAIRS

Voluntary Sector
Work is ongoing on the development of a forward funding strategy

Infrastructure Support Commission
The council has awarded the tender to provide infrastructure support to voluntary and community sector organisations to CVS. The tender is awarded for 18 months in the first instance with an anticipation of a further year subject to performance.


Community Asset transfer
The council's community affairs team have led on the development of a single gateway process for organisations wanting to have a council building or piece of land transferred to their ownership. This work has been recognised nationally by the Development trusts association and we were invited to speak at a regional conference in Preston and showcase the work.

ECONOMIC AFFAIRS

The Economic Affairs Unit continues to provide support for residents and businesses - particularly those affected by the recession. Since my last report, the recession is still having a significant impact and the borough has continued to see job losses. As a consequence, we have the highest Job Seekers Allowance claimant rate in Greater Manchester. However, we continue to work hard on these challenges and there are many positive things to report on including –

The success of GM’s bid for the ‘Future Jobs Fund’ means that Rochdale will be offering up to 650 work placements over the next 18 months to the long term unemployed and young people. After the 6 month placement, support will be given to assist individuals into further training, apprenticeships or work.

For those wishing to start a business or social enterprise, two new projects are now in place to provide free training and advice. These are:

• Enterprise Coaching Support, provided by Blue Orchid, which will offer an intensive pre-start up service to encourage enterprise in deprived areas and under represented communities.

• Intensive Business Start Up Support, provided by Blue Orchid, The Prince’s Trust and KYP, who will deliver support to people considering setting up a new business and for the first 3 years of trading.

For existing businesses, the Council’s ‘Beat the Crunch’ programme continues to offer a variety of free workshops including; getting procurement ready, introduction to sales and guerrilla marketing.
Successful advertising in the local press and online has resulted in an excellent take up of all these events.

We continue to work across partners to train front line workers. This makes sure that all frontline workers are helping people through the recession and into training, even if their primary job is in housing or childcare, for example. As part of this, we have trained frontline and community centre workers in Debt Management skills.

Employment Links have been recognised as a premier ‘Next Step’ provider within Greater Manchester, and are well underway with their delivery of Advice and Guidance Sessions. They are helping more people than the majority of other providers across Greater Manchester.
Despite challenging economic conditions J21 continue to secure job outcomes and the Kingsway team have a number of active enquires.

A visit to the Borough in July, by officers from the Department of Children, Schools & Families, resulted in the allocation of funding for the continuation of the National Literacy Trust programme. Also in terms of literacy, it should be noted that the Borough is at the forefront of the national ‘Family Reading Matters’ campaign with targets already met or exceeded. Good practice from Rochdale Borough is now being rolled out nationally.

Rochdale Borough Marketing Strategy is now underway, with initial consultations having taken place.

The recent unveiling of two blue plaques, which received national media coverage, has helped to raise the profile of the Borough as a Tourism destination. This, and other successful events, such as the Feel Good Festival have all helped to contribute to the steady rise in visitor numbers to the Borough

New Heart for Heywood NDC Partnership
Key Details
• For the former Boots site, an appraisal has been approved by NDC, and work is under way to meet the conditions in order to gain Government Office approval.
• DCLG are currently scrutinising delivery plans and proposals - this places a need to risk assess all proposals as any funding not spent to plan is lost to the Heywood programme

Jobs and Prosperity
• The NDC continues to keep under review the projects within the Skills and Work programme to ensure they meet the changing needs within the challenging context of the current economic climate.
• The Recession Task Group has approved a package of £99,000 of additional funding to support the skills and work programmes.

Health and Wellbeing
HADP
• The Health Activity Development Programme is a programme of 14 projects working with partners and residents to develop and change health and activity services, so that when the Phoenix Centre and Sports, Culture and Leisure Village are open, services will be developed and delivered in new ways, with and for local people..

Quality of Place
Heywood Town Centre Programme
• The scheme to improve the block of shops that front onto Market Street and back onto Dawson Street started has been completed. Feedback from the public and shopkeepers has been very positive – there is a feeling of a transformed appearance which should lift the trading prospects of the town centre.
Sports, Culture and Leisure Village
• The building work is well under way, with the groundworks completed and the steelwork progressing well. A community-led Steering Group is working on the look, feel and use of the building from a community perspective.

Children and Young People
Youth Programme
• Heywood Youth Inclusion Project achieved a 65% reduction in arrest rates. Cost of prevention via this model less than 6% of cost of custody.

In addition to Heywood YIP I can report the following:
• Middleton Youth Inclusion Project has now extended to cover the whole of Middleton Township and has taken on 14 new young people.
• Rochdale Youth Inclusion Project (formerly Kirkholt) has now expanded to cover Turfhill as well as Kirkholt with future expansion at a later date.
• As part of the “Include Project” there are dedicated key workers that work with younger children all over the Borough
All the Youth Inclusion Projects come under the management of the Youth Offending Team

Moving Forward from the NDC Programme
• There is a project plan in place for managing the end of the NDC Programme by March 2011. The Heywood Township Manager supported by the NDC Chief Executive is taking forward a clear set of planned actions to develop a strategy (which can be supported by all partners) to sustain the improvements and benefits in the New Heart for Heywood NDC area in a way that is consistent with local/ Heywood priorities, strategies and delivery mechanisms.
• A report on this draft strategy was discussed at the cabinet meeting in September 2009, with the final plans to be signed off by the Chief Executive RMBC and Chair of the NDC by 31st October 2009

COMMUNITY COHESION

• The Government recently confirmed that the borough of Rochdale would receive £156,550 for 2009/10 and indicative funding of £161,247 for 2010/11 from the Migration Impacts Fund. A fund paid for by migrants themselves. The fund will be used for many things including the provision of further and more targeted English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) classes, for the training of interpreters and translators and to support organisations and groups that provide advice and support.

• Rochdale Borough is now a pathfinder authority for English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL): a new approach. An action plan is currently been created to help deliver this piece of work which will ensure provision is targeted at those most in need in future.

• The Government also recently confirmed that the borough would receive £80,000 for 2009/10 from the Challenge Innovation Fund to deliver a leadership programme for young British Muslims and a Mosque leaders challenging Extremism project.

• Updates on the progress of the community cohesion projects such as connecting communities through sports and the coffee mornings are currently been received and assessed, early indications are that the projects are delivering many milestones on target.

• The Place Survey 2008 results were recently released and identified improvements in the results of community cohesion national indicators 1: ‘The percentage of people who believe people from different backgrounds get on well together in their local area’ (improvement of 4%); 4: ‘The percentage of people who feel that they can influence decisions in their locality’ (improvement of 0.9%) and 23: ‘The percentage of people who think there is a problem with people not treating each other with respect and consideration’ (improvement of 12.8%). These improvements are based on previous results from 2006. However, overall there is still considerable progress to be made.

U-Nite 2009

The RSCP U-Nite Youth Community Cohesion Group facilitated the annual U-Nite event which was attended by 160 young people on the 6th August 2009.

The event aims to:
 Build a mutual understanding between young people aged 12-16 from different socio-economic groups, ethnic backgrounds and areas of the borough.
 To bring young people into contact with officers from across the borough’s voluntary and statutory agencies in a non-confrontational environment.

A report about the event will be available in the near future.

Cllr Mohammad Sharif