Agenda item

Report to follow.

Stuart Young, Assistant Chief Executive, presented the report on the Review of Partnership Arrangements, which set out the full list of recommendations arising from the research commissioned into partnership arrangements. Three key principles had been identified; that there should be a core partnership group that meets every six weeks, the only standing partnership bodies would be the shadow Health and Wellbeing Board and a Community Safety Board and task and finish groups would be commissioned to undertake specific pieces of work to deliver partnership objectives. It was intended that the new structure should focus on priorities and outcomes, and how these could be best achieved, and that streamlining the partnership body structure would reduce duplication.

The first meeting of the Joint Leadership Group was to meet later in the week and would include representatives from the police, Job Centre Plus, education and health. It was confirmed that Cllr Vanier would also be a member of this body. The body would focus initially on priorities and outcomes, and would adopt a commissioning approach to pieces of work necessary, using task and finish groups.

Concern was expressed that while there were discussions taking place at a regional level regarding partnership working and the role of Crime Reduction Partnerships, there appeared to be a dismantling of the partnership structure in Haringey. Concerns were also raised regarding where the decision would be made regarding which were the ‘right’ bodies to be involved in certain pieces of work, and what the involvement of the voluntary and community sector would be in taking these decisions. In response to some of these concerns, it was confirmed that the Community Safety Partnership would remain, and it would be the whole Board that would take any such decisions, which would include voluntary and community sector representatives. It was also intended that any sub-bodies, including and task and finish groups, would remain fully accountable to the Board and report into Board meetings.

It was suggested that the terms of reference of the Board be revisited, and it was agreed that this would be useful given that, while the overarching responsibilities of the Board would remain the same, different ways of working with partners were being explored.

Stuart Young encouraged Board members in advance of the next meeting to think about the groups and sub-bodies already in place and to map these against the identified priorities and outcomes to ensure that there was as close a fit as possible. This could then be reflected upon at the next meeting.

It was reported that all of the previous sub-bodies of the Board were in the process of being reviewed as part of the move towards the Victim / Offender / Location model and were currently inactive pending the outcome of this review.

The Board welcomed the opportunity to look at increasing the efficiency of its work, but felt that greater communication was required around the ongoing review process, as not all of the Chairs of the sub-bodies of the Board had been aware that their activity was frozen. It was requested that the various sub-boards be consulted so that they could feed into the review process.

RESOLVED

That the report be noted.