Agenda item

The Board received a presentation by Mitchell Salter, Senior Policy and Insight Manager and Emily Adams, Policy and Insight Manager on Doncaster’s Economic Strategy 2030, which had been approved by the Council’s Cabinet on 14 December 2022.

The presentation outlined the key themes, economic missions and mission priorities in the Strategy and, in particular, explained how a new approach had been taken with the aim of placing health and wellbeing at the core of the Strategy.

The Board discussed at length the links between health and economy and how these were mutually supporting.  Members recognised the important contribution that the health and social care sector made to the local economy in terms of its income, being the largest employer in the city, as well as the significant contribution made by its employees as citizens of Doncaster.  This contribution was therefore on two levels, the first being the value of health in respect of maintaining a healthy and resilient workforce, and the second being the contribution the sector made towards the economy as regards employment and income. 

Members also recognised that Doncaster played a significant role in training a third of all health and social care students in South Yorkshire, but because the students were based in Sheffield, this meant that Doncaster was losing an economic advantage to its neighbour.  With this in mind, the Board agreed that it was vital that thought was given to Doncaster’s strategy for developing health and social care over the next decade, including ways of bringing health and social care education into the City.  Riana Nelson pointed out that the possibility of Doncaster becoming a University City was currently being investigated, which would bring with it the potential for developing new educational pathways and local provision in Doncaster and she explained that partner engagement on the proposals would be carried out at the appropriate time.

The Board also discussed the importance of making Doncaster City centre an attractive place for people to live, study and work, if it was to bring businesses and people in.  On this point, it was noted that a significant amount of work was being undertaken by the Council’s Business Doncaster team in relation to attracting inward investment into the City.  Members were also informed that a refresh of the urban centre masterplan for Doncaster was planned, which would consider what was needed to develop the city centre of the future. 

Dr Rupert Suckling commented that this was just one of a whole suite of Team Doncaster strategies which were all inter-related and therefore each strategy also needed to be viewed in the context of other strategies.  As regards the Economic Strategy, Rupert added that he would like to see more focus on the locality way of working included in the Strategy.

Phil Holmes informed the Board that Doncaster’s local account for adult social care was due to be considered by the Cabinet next week.  Included in the local account was the priority to “create and sustain more employment opportunities for autistic people, people with a learning disability and people in contact with secondary mental health services”.  He felt this interface between adult social care activity and the work of the Strategy was a good example of the types of collaboration between the objectives of the Economic Strategy and Health and Wellbeing improvements that needed to be identified.

In response to a question regarding the future of the Working Win initiative, Mitchell Salter explained that this project was now being delivered on a regional basis, and that new referrals had been suspended while the financing of the scheme from April 2023 was being looked at.  However, he stressed that it was important to draw out the positive learning lessons from this project regardless of how the scheme may progress in the future, and he explained that some of this work would be progressed via alternative routes, such as through the employment hub at the Council.

Richard Parker also spoke on the importance of ensuring that there was joined up working between the health service and the chamber of commerce and local entrepreneurs so that they could take advantage of any possible commercial enterprise opportunities arising from new developments, such as the 2 new major capital schemes in relation to the Mexborough Community Diagnostic Centre and the Mexborough Elective Orthopaedic Centre, both of which had the potential to introduce opportunities for wealth generation.

In response to a comment by Steve Shore, Mitchell Salter confirmed that the Council was working with colleagues in the city of Pittsburgh, USA to learn from their success in transforming the city’s economy in the health care, education and technology industries.  This included work in relation to education and skills, business support, and learning from economic gardening principles.

In terms of next steps, Board members also discussed how the delivery of key actions could be taken forward by Team Doncaster partners across the multiple strands within the Strategy, from a health and wellbeing perspective.

RESOLVED to:-

1.            Recognise and endorse the Doncaster Economic Strategy 2030.

2.            Recognise and endorse opportunities to align the actions of the strategy with improving health and wellbeing in Doncaster.

3.            Outline further opportunities for collaboration between the objectives of the Doncaster Economic Strategy 2030 and Health and Wellbeing improvements – including recommended prioritisation based on the upcoming work of the Health and Wellbeing Board.