Agenda item

The Committee received a detailed presentation and accompanying report addressing locality working.  It was outlined that Locality working involved the whole Council pulling together, with partners, to deliver on local deals and locality plans that had been produced with and by residents.  It was designed to improve resident experience through a more locally informed, integrated and relationship approach reducing the need for crisis response through a more preventative, integrated approach.

 

The presentation brought to life excellent key examples, demonstrated by each locality, from health and wellbeing, economic inclusion to community safety and getting a decent start in life.  This gave the Committee a good idea of what was taking place across the whole of the Borough.

 

Some examples included:

 

EAST LOCALITY – Focus on health priorities - The presentation covered how health, social care, community, voluntary and other public services collaborate to improve health outcomes and deliver positive activities for all ages.  A specific example given was Edenthorpe Junior Football Club required more space locally to expand to provide more girls and boys teams.  To achieve this the  Club and community worked together with the Council to secure the use of and upgrade of additional playing field space (Tesco field), including lighting and CCTV.   Street Scene assisted with creating the playing space and pitches.

 

NORTH LOCALITY – Focus on Advance Employment Hub – this was established to mitigate the risk of poverty and help people thrive in their chosen career.  It was a Doncaster wide initiative but with a locality focused approach and was a bespoke service for small, medium and large businesses.  The accessibility and support assists with a quick and proactive response, for example, following the announcement of redundancies at Doncaster Sheffield Airport, 60 local employers met with the staff to assist with finding other employment.

 

CENTRAL LOCALITY – Focus on community safety and anti-social behaviour City Centre, Frenchgate Centre and Interchange – following lockdown easing in 2020 as dark nights were approaching, young people from different areas across Doncaster and wider region, were congregating often in large numbers in the City centre, especially in the Frenchgate centre and Interchange creating serious incidents.  This included threatening and abusive behaviours, risky behaviour placing young people and the public at risk, theft from shops, damage to firefighting equipment, assaults on retail and securing security staff and criminal damage in the Frenchgate centre to a cost of £48,000.

 

Through social media platforms, young people were arranging to meet for fights from across the borough, neighbouring towns and other areas in the country.  The resultant impact was significant on the feeling of confidence and safety for businesses and other users of the city centre.

 

A multi-partner, co-produced plan was enacted, involving South Yorkshire Police, British Transport Police, Businesses, Children’s Services, Schools, the Young Advisors, Youth Services, Youth Offending Service, Violence Reduction Unit, Criminal Justice and voluntary sector partners.  The plan ensured everyone new their role and was simple, agile and was capable of being scaled up and was a model that could be lifted and dropped into other complex situations involving young people in other areas.

 

There was a range of activity ranging from high visibility joint patrolling, engagement with young people, schools, youth services, communications designed and delivered by young people and aimed at young people, positive activity and enforcement that included prosecutions and exclusions for a small hardcore that could not be persuade to respond to the positive response on offer.

 

Soe practical measures included, installing and upgrading CCTV, designing of crime and anti-social behaviour hot spot locations, restricting the number of access points, a young people’s code of conduct, weekends of action, community safety campaigns and the creation of a dedicated “Youth Zone” in a Frenchgate centre shop unit to engage and provide a creative space to channel energies into positive activity.

 

The delivery of the plan continues and engagement with business and the public was providing positive responses.

 

Thorne Road Anti-social Behaviour – In response to complaints of increasing crime and anti-social behaviour by residents of Thorne Road and surrounding area close to the city centre a multi partner plan was created and delivered that included residents. This related to an increase in sex work activity and crime and anti-social behaviour arising but also included concerns about an increase in on street drinking and open drug use, poor management of houses in multiple occupation, fly-tipping, litter and the general poor appearance of the locality, underpinned by a strong desire by residents to communicate better with public services and ease reporting and response arrangements.

 

The multi-agency response involved a thematic plan with lead and single point of contact, to address crime and anti-social behaviour, environment, noise, community safety, provide assertive outreach and support for vulnerable people to break the cycle of an unsafe lifestyle and help those affected by substance misuse.  High visibility Police and Council patrol and engagement plans were put in place to disrupt and enforce using a full range of tools and powers.  Additional CCTV had been installed, street lighting improved and highway modifications undertaken to design out problem areas.  More work around these themes was planned.  A new enforcement process to tackle kerb crawling was in development and the contract to provide support to sex workers (Amber Project) had been strengthened to provide more resources for preventative work.  Information advice and guidance had been provided for residents to report and record issues to enable greater collaboration with public services.  Now in place were environmental clean ups, property inspections and engagement with landlords to improve the look and feel of the area.

 

Overall improvements had resulted due to a blended combination of enforcement and care and support for vulnerable people and residents were actively engaged with a resultant improvement in confidence. 

 

SOUTH LOCALITY - Focus on Children and Young People – addressed hearing the voice and listening to what the community was saying.  It was established that the community voice around young people was very strong, sometimes negative comments but also requesting more provision for young people that were interesting, active, better quality and variety and for it to be advertised and communicated well.

 

It was important to ensure that existing community based assets were strengthened to provide such facilities.  Rather than services operating in isolation in different towns across the borough, they linked themselves through the community model with the Council’s support, to run services more efficiently.  Some of the activities provided were crafts, fitness aqua sports, music and design workshops.

 

The delivery would be evaluated to move forward in future years.

 

Additionally a whole family working approach was piloted over a 12 month period. As a result practitioners from a wide range of services were working together at a local level delivering support through locality triage and local solutions groups, including:

 

·       4 hubs established;

·       17 local solution groups running monthly;

·       Community engagement borough wide;  and

·       Digital support for public practitioners.

 

First 11 weeks

·       69% handled within the day ‘see and solve’;

·       31% supported through intensive multi-agency conversations, partnership actions.

 

ENGAGEMENT – it was noted that a range of engagement methods had been used to complete the locality plans through:

 

Appreciative inquiry = 1,400

Community representatives = 570

Stakeholders = 24 groups

Surveys and consultation = 13,759

Social media = 739

Bespoke engagement = 1,193

Different ethnicities = 35

Small independent businesses = 495

Broad range of youth engagement

 

Locality plans had been designed, finalised and were available to download on “Your Life Doncaster”.

 

The Committee noted the detailed information provided through the presentation and addressed the following issues in further detail.  It was also recognised that a lot of hard work had been undertaken to achieve the current position.

 

Continued collaboration – in response to how this would continue into the future, be measured and kept simple, it was explained that with a programme of such a breadth of work and specific nature I could be like “knitting fog” but to continue with the path already taken.  There was the need to continue listening to the voice of local people and businesses.  The Gap required narrowing in the long term to continue to make a difference.   The Locality plans would be renewed each year showing progress made and public accountability.

 

Communication – It was acknowledged that it was difficult to provide the number of people across Doncaster’s Communities who were aware of the “Locality working” brand but it was more of a “vibe” than numbers.  It was important that people were aware of how the system was changing their lives and ensuring that they knew where they could get the help and the information they needed to help themselves.

 

It was confirm that Locality information had been sent out to 96,000 residents with key messages reaching the majority of communities.  Following the launch of the Communications Strategy there had been a 26% increase in referrals with a lot through email and social media.

 

The Chair stressed that community notice boards may seem old fashioned and sometimes difficult to upkeep but they could still be an effective communication method.

 

Cross partnership training – it was confirmed that there was a suite of multi-agency training available, including voluntary community and early help training for everyone who supports the whole family approach.

 

Partnership gaps – it was noted that there was strong engagement within the Localities delivery model including the Local Authority, St Leger Homes, South Yorkshire Police, Voluntary Action Doncaster, Integrated Care Board, social prescribers, schools, Department for Work and Pensions and GPs.  The overlap of services provided by GPs and locality working was acknowledged and a meeting with primary care networks was planned to discuss the best way forward with engagement and local referrals.

 

Formal –v- informal venues/meeting places – it was noted that the people focus group peer space was friendly, removing any fear factor.  For example visiting the Civic Office could be a little too formal and prevent some families from calling in.

 

Effective and successful plans, particularly targeted Police work – with regards to how the partnership would measure requirements for the next round of plans it was explained by South Yorkshire Police that qualitative and quantitative information was built within data sets to ensure both promotion and reactive services were providing the right feel and community confidence.  The South Yorkshire Police problem solving model identified methods and tactics both locally and nationally that worked well in certain areas, with agile plans developed to address specific issues within neighbourhood and City centre policing.  It was highlighted that the increased footfall within the City centre following a period of anti-social behaviour, discussed earlier, identified that the partnership response was right.  The plans that sat behind every partnership were strong and were already making an impact.

 

Engagement and inclusion – it was noted that last year engagement in some areas was more patchy than others therefore a deep dive in these areas was being undertaken, including discussions with as many ethnic groups as possible.  It was explained that external funding had been secured to work with many organisations in the third sector organisation, for example, the deaf community. 

 

The Local Authority and South Yorkshire Police Gypsy and Traveller link workers continued liaison and visits within this community.  The families were keen to ensure their children and young adults were not being perceived in a negative way.

 

For people where English was not their first language, translation services were available, for example survey documents had been translated.  It was confirmed that the different languages across the borough had been mapped.  Mosaic (the Council’s social care information management system) was being used to look at portraits of communities to address the different ethnicities and issues they were facing and ensuring the right support was blended into certain areas.

 

It was noted that community workers had been trained to be a community reporters. This included working with South Asian women to help capture view of the community and translated to better understand about the benefits and opportunities in their community.  A major local employer with Council support had introduced a training programme to improve English language skills for workforce entrants to improve employee opportunities and experience and improve productivity.  This was being promoted with other Doncaster businesses.

 

With regard to education establishments contact was being made with Primary and Secondary schools, colleges and alternative provision schools.  Engagement levels with schools was good and growing but higher levels of engagement were found in primary schools and it was thought this was due to parents being more actively involved at a primary level.

 

Locality working was accepted as a different way of working and plans had been developed for everyone to live their life on their own terms but seek help where needed.  It was noted that Doncaster was the largest geographical borough in the country therefore grouping common ground across the borough was essential for plans to succeed and actions not to be duplicated.  It was stressed that discussions with people who can and want to make changes across the many communities was essential.

 

It was recognised that the messaged and publication from the Communications Teams were geared towards locality working.

 

To ensure the community’s voice was heard the continuation of Doncaster Talks was suggested for future years.

 

Report it campaign – it was acknowledged that there needed to be an understanding of how critical an incident was and how to report.  Awareness raising was being undertaken by the Partnership within communities to understand where and when to report an incident to get the right response.  It was noted that a lot of people were still non-digital therefore it was essential to cascade information correctly.

 

Data collection – to avoid duplication, data sets were collated and analysed through the Joint Strategic Needs Assessment (JSNA).  With regard to the cost of living crisis it may not currently represent what support was required therefore there was a need to understand exactly what effect it was having for individuals and groups of people in Doncaster.  Data showed, that there were health needs within communities however the local voice was not identifying this.  In response the health group response was developing actions to address this.

 

Grass roots approach – it was acknowledged that locality plans presented a great example of co-produced work from grass roots upward and to achieve this, appreciative enquiries were undertaken discovering issues through conversations.  Community actions plans would be co-produced, owned by the Community with support provided by partners to drive required actions.

A good example of collaborative working was the football provision example provided earlier in earlier discussion.

 

To conclude, the Chair and Committee thanked the officers for providing a comprehensive report, presentation and discussion.

 

RESOLVED: that the discussion, be noted.