Agenda item

To consider the findings and recommendations of a review of the Haringey Joint Partnerships Board.

A number of guests were introduced to the Panel:

• Pip Canons – CEO, Community Catalysts
• Natasha Benn – Interim Chair, Joint Partnership Board (JPB)
• Amanda Jacobs – JPB Member
• Lourdes Keever – JPB Member
• Cathy Stasny - JPB Member
• Dan Rogers – CEO, Public Voice CiC
• Jano Goodchild - Participation and Co-production Manager, Public Voice CiC
• Rachel Sanders – Project Officer, Public Voice CiC
• Phil Stevens – CEO, Disability Action Haringey

Dan Rogers, CEO of Public Voice CiC, began the introduction of the report, informing the Panel that Public Voice was a voluntary/community sector organisation contracted to facilitate the Joint Partnership Board (JPB). The JPB provided a forum where commissioners and advisers of services and residents worked together on service improvements and facilitated co-production. The JPB also facilitated a set of reference groups that represented seldom heard people, including a carers group, an older person’s group and a disabled person’s group. The reference groups developed their agendas and worked together on important issues. The Chairs/co-Chairs of the reference groups then worked together the JPB to discuss issues that were having an impact on the wider community and inequalities. In 2024, a number of JPB members requested a strategic review of the function of the JPB, including strengthening the governance of the Board and representation of the community.

Pip Canons, CEO of Community Catalysts, explained that they had helped to facilitate a process that would enable everyone to have their voices heard and to co-produce some priorities for action. Prior to Community Catalysts joining there had been an initial independent review carried out by the Public Health team. Community Catalysts were then asked to look at the findings of that review and involve the JPB reference groups to build on those recommendations. The process had been thorough with enthusiastic engagement which represented an opportunity to embed an important citizen voice within the governance structure and help make improvements to services. The process looked at issues through a ‘live well’ lens and an ‘age well’ lens leading to specific recommendations:

• Improve and embed co-production principles and approaches.
• Governance and accountability – including stronger links with key governance structures within the Council and the NHS in order to effect real change.
• Improve functioning of JPB – by ensuring that it has the right structure, roles and resources to be fit for purpose and enable people to fully participate.
• Inclusion and wider community reach – it was felt that there was a particular gap around learning difficulties and mental health where additional engagement was required to ensure that these groups were represented. Reaching out to marginalised groups was also an important element of inclusion, such as by producing materials in the right formats and in appropriate languages.

A series of questions then followed from the Panel:

• Cllr Peacock commented that she was involved with the largest pensioners group in the Borough and suggested that this group be included in the engagement process as it had not been included in the list of JPB connections in the slides. Pip Canons explained that the illustration of connections had been put together as part of a workshop to map out the JPB members, reference groups and other connected organisations. However, they would ensure that the pensioners group was added to this. (ACTION)
• Helena Kania commented that the JPB was always about health needs, not just social care, and so she felt that NHS services and public health needed to be emphasised more clearly that was currently set out in the list of JPB priorities. Cllr Connor noted that page 175 in the main agenda pack made reference to “explore NHS/partner attendance at reference groups” and also to “explore wider Council attendance at reference groups”, emphasising the importance of having a strong ask on the involvement of relevant partners. Jano Goodchild, Participation and Co-production Manager, Public Voice CiC, commented that there had been some good health partnerships, but they had struggled recently following the recent changes at the ICB. However, there was now involvement through the Autism reference group, some of the Age Well team from the ICB were involved with the Older Person’s reference group, and there were also connections through the Dementia reference group, including the Memory Clinic. There were ongoing discussions on the opportunities to raise the voices of residents through the neighbourhood structures. Cllr Connor proposed a recommendation from the Panel to strongly support the efforts to encourage statutory partners to be actively involved with the reference groups including, health, public health, mental health and the local authority. (ACTION)
• Lourdes Keever, JPB Member, emphasised the need to formalise co-production with the rest of the voluntary sector and for the JPB to do more of this. Cllr Connor added that the governance structure was an important part of this as it would enable the testing of co-production, the measuring of outcomes and appropriate support from the Council. She also noted the reference on page 173 of the agenda pack on the accountability of the JPB in the terms of reference to Adult Social Care, the ICB and the Adults & Health Scrutiny Panel. Lourdes Keever also noted the intention to link into the Health and Wellbeing Board.
• Natasha Benn, Interim Chair of the JPB, reported that there had been a focus on the practical requirements to achieve the objectives, including the links required for true co-production and the development of the historic relationships through the reference groups.
• Jano Goodchild, Participation and Co-production Manager at Public Voice CiC, informed the Panel that a task-and-finish group had been set up to work through the actions outlined in the Review. In addition, job descriptions had been developed for the chair of the JPB and the chairs of the reference groups (including the agreement of reimbursements), a code of conduct had been agreed and there had been discussions on enhancing the diversity of the reference groups.
• Jo Baty emphasised that the presence of eight reference groups provided a valuable infrastructure have long-term conversations with people who really understood what residents needed within each of those different groups. The aim was to build new voices and engage with new communities while maintaining strong relationships with those who had been involved for a long time. She felt that there had been progress on finding common ground between the Council’s priorities and the JPB’s priorities and the next stage would be to develop tangible actions and the Council being held to account on its improvement journey.
• Cllr Connor asked about improving the attendance levels of the Learning Disability and Mental Health reference groups. Lourdes Keever said that there had previously been some effective advocates for learning disabilities but recently there had not been the resource available to hire them. Natasha Benn added that the availability of funds was a crucial factor in enabling advocacy as well as meeting other accessibility needs such as BSL (sign language) support. Funding also impacted on communications requirements such as social media engagement and maintaining a website.
• Phil Stevens, CEO of Disability Action Haringey, commented that, having worked across a number of Boroughs, the JPB was unique and that there should be pride in what had been developed. He noted that the JPB could help to share insight across Council Directorates, but the only funding was being provided from Adult Social Care and that other Directorates could be asked to contribute given that the funding was currently inadequate. He explained that the reason that there was not currently a deaf reference group was because the expense of interpretation was so significant. Sara Sutton reiterated the financial challenges faced by the Council as discussed earlier in the meeting and explained that the source of the funding was the Better Care Fund (BCF) which was an integrated pot between health and adult social care. However, she acknowledged that there could be a bigger ask from health partners so there could be further conversations about exploring wider partnership opportunities around funding. Cllr Connor indicated that the Panel supported that approach. (ACTION)
• Amanda Jacobs, JPB Member, expressed concern that some groups of people in the Borough could not be included in the process due to the cost of involving them. On another matter, she explained that a group including some JPB members which had looked at Low Traffic Neighbourhood (LTN) issues, had now become a wider Transport Inclusion group which looked at various accessibility issues. This group had been disbanded without consultation in June with a view to a successor group being set up. However, progress on this had since been halted. Cllr das Neves commented that she had previously attended some of these meetings and her understanding was that the group would be reformulated. She suggested that this concern could be formally raised with the Culture, Community Safety and Environment Scrutiny Panel which had responsibility for transport issues. Cllr Connor agreed that this concern would be passed on to the Chair of that Panel. (ACTION)
• Cllr Brennan queried whether there would be a formalised mechanism for engagement with the Council. Natasha Benn agreed that the aim was to identify key partners and establish a formal process to ensure that they were present at key meetings and events. This was already happening with some of the reference groups, though there were still some gaps. She added that support from the Panel in this regard would be welcome. Cllr Connor emphasised that the Panel was fully supportive of positive engagement and co-production. Cllr Lucia das Neves, Cabinet Member for Health, Social Care and Wellbeing, commented that she was supportive of the previous suggestion to link the JPB to the Health and Wellbeing Board which she chaired. She noted that this would be a thematic space to follow the Health and Wellbeing Strategy and to discuss cross-Borough issues.
• Lourdes Keever commented that Public Voice had done a lot of work on the ‘theory of change’ which she hoped would help to influence the outcomes that were arrived at and to develop monitoring processes based on co-production. Cllr Connor agreed with this, expressing the Panel’s support for the monitoring of outcomes and suggesting that progress towards these outcomes could be brought back to the Panel at a future meeting. (ACTION)
• Cllr Iyngkaran commented that the Council had sometimes struggled to reach some communities in the Borough and asked if the JPB had ideas of how this could be achieved. Referring to the previous concerns about the prohibitive costs of engaging with certain groups such as the deaf community, he also asked what alternative methods of engagement had been considered. Jano Goodchild responded that this would be easier to assess when action plans and priorities had been established as this would provide clarity on which groups were not engaging. It would also be possible to bring in voluntary sector organisations to assist with engagement. Phil Stevens commented that, while it was possible in some cases to make adjustments that were culturally appropriate or suitable in terms of venue, it was necessary in the context of the deaf community to provide for their access needs in order for them to be able to engage. Natasha Benn added that going out into the community and engaging through a personal approach was key to engagement and understanding people’s needs. She felt that the JPB had a wide reach already and they were attempting to increase this, but the fact remained that they were stretched and limited in terms of capacity. Sara Sutton commented that the Council could assist by facilitating links to the existing Community Networks. Cllr das Neves drew attention to the Community Health Champions which were deeply embedded in local communities and could be beneficial to the JPB engagement. Amanda Jacobs emphasised the importance of meeting accessibility requirements and reasonable adjustments, noting that BSL was a completely different language to spoken and written English. She felt that there was a lack of accessibility and inclusion expertise within the Council and said that she had personally rewritten some documentation as part of the work on the Transport Inclusion group even though this was not the responsibility of a volunteer. Cllr Connor concluded by emphasising the importance of enabling all groups to be able to access the JPB and to contribute their opinions and expertise. She suggested that this was an area that the Panel should receive an update about as part of the next report. (ACTION)
• Asked by Cllr Connor what support the Council could provide to the JPB with online communications, Jo Baty said that there was a named officer for most of the reference groups but felt that this should be formalised which should lead to a better resourced set of reference groups. Sara Sutton added that it may be possible to use the Council’s volunteering ‘time credit’ offer to bring in more skills and resources for the JPB. Cllr Connor commented that the establishment of a website was key and suggested that this should be a key action to monitor going forward. (ACTION) Amanda Jacobs emphasised the importance of developing the website alongside an accessibility guide.
• Asked by Cllr O’Donovan about the number of reference groups, Natasha Benn clarified that there was room for eight groups, with seven currently active. She added that even this was not sufficient to be truly representative but that it was important to adopt a practical approach, for example by considering how to redefine or fit more people into the existing reference groups. Cllr O’Donovan suggested that one area to consider was how to ensure that voices are passed up and heard for people who were unable to actually attend the meetings.

In closing the agenda item, Cllr Connor thanked all those who had joined for their attendance, reiterating the Panel’s ongoing support for engagement and co-production. She looked forward to the next update report on how the JPB was progressing.

Areas for the Panel to monitor in future were:

• Efforts to encourage statutory partners to be actively involved with the reference groups including, health, public health, mental health and the local authority.
• Wider partnership opportunities around funding, including health partners.
• Monitoring progress towards outcomes.
• Enabling all groups to be able to access the JPB and to contribute their opinions and expertise.
• Establishment of a JPB website.
• How the Council’s volunteering offer could be used to bring in more skills and resources for the JPB.