Agenda item

(Report of the Assistant Director, Partnerships)

The Portfolio Holder for Environment Health and Community partnerships introduced report of the Assistant Director, Partnerships to give an update on the Tamworth Wellbeing Strategy Baseline Report produced for the UK Shared Prosperity Fund Board.

The Officer highlighted the following –

Ø  Community Together CIC commissioned to complete the report which identified the four priorities in the report.

Ø  The County Health Inequalities Directors Group had identified £255000 allocated to Tamworth through the Covid 19 Contain Outbreak Management Fund which must be spend by September 2024.

The Committee made the following comments/observations and asked the following questions:

1.     While the committee acknowledged that work has to start somewhere and that the two areas of Tamworth identified in the health inequalities document as having a ‘high’ level of need do contains areas of high deprivation which may bring the data for these areas, there are streets in every ward that would fall under that category. By marking these areas as red on a map they could be creating a perception of the whole area and as a result encouraging behaviours to become normalised and that the impact of the residents in these areas needed to be considered when labelling them. The committee highlighted that this could also give a negative impression to people considering moving to these areas. Despite a number of projects being introduced to tackle the issues in these areas over the years the same issues are still  being highlighted.

The committee acknowledged that whilst the strategy is good, that they need to identify actions and funding to back this up and that work needs to be done within the borough to drill down and identify the areas of need rather than rely on the blanket data from county. It was highlighted that both officers and members would be able to identify streets and even families in need.

The committee agreed that it was more meaningful to address health inequities rather than equalities within the borough and that further work should be done before this is put to Cabinet in March.

The committee expressed concerns that other areas would be ignored by using this approach and not benefit from any resources where current programmes in place focus on the whole borough.

The officer confirmed that the building resilient families programme worked across the whole borough and was very successful. They confirmed that through the Health Inequalities Directors group it was agreed that that two wards would be identified, and then further work would be done to drill down within those areas. They agreed to feedback the committee’s comments to the group.

A recommendation was moved by Councillor D Cook that through Cabinet we send a request back to county that we can target this money better across Tamworth to where the money is actually needed rather than pigeonhole it in to two wards, using our local insight.

The officer confirmed that it is clear from the initial meetings of the director’s group that they do want the data to be able create a locality profile and that they would look at this being across Tamworth.

2.     With regards to funding, would we be spreading ourselves too thin with the money we have and whether the funding was going to be used to make a difference and not for something they are already doing to create additionality. A working group was considered however due to the timescales that they needed to return to county that this was not progressed.

3.     The officer confirmed that the COMF funding has tight deadlines, proposals have to be back to county within a week and spent by September. There are a number of projects that have put some proposals forward which are generally across the wards including around housing, and that some of the projects do provide additionality by given the opportunity to extend projects and projects to get families involved in leisure but there are also some new projects. It was highlighted that it can be difficult to measure what has had the most impact.

The officer confirmed that for this pot of money they need to act fast to not miss out and then they can monitor any grants that are given out, and report back to the committee on outcomes. The committee agreed that for this funding it was too late to do a larger piece of work.

4.     How will the strategy be measured?

The officer confirmed that the strategy is an umbrella for the four-priority area’s and within each priority area there will be an associated workplan ready for Cabinet in March.

The recommendation moved earlier in the meeting was withdrawn but the Cabinet members present were asked to consider all the committees comments in future.

5.     The committee asked that details of any projects that were going ahead be shared with them.

Councillor Cook and Council Jay left the meeting at 6:55pm