Agenda and minutes

Apologies for absence were received from Councillors Nora Ball and Alan Cain.

Members are reminded of their responsibility to declare any personal interest in respect of matters contained in this agenda. If the interest arises only as result of your membership of another public body or one to which you have been appointed by the Council then you only need to declare it if you intend to speak.

If the personal interest is a prejudicial interest, you must withdraw from the meeting. Normally you should leave the room before the business starts to be discussed. You do, however, have the same right to speak as a member of the public and may remain in the room to enable you to exercise that right and then leave immediately. In either case you must not seek to improperly influence a decision on the matter.

No declarations of interest were declared.

To confirm as a correct record the minutes of the meeting of the Overview and Scrutiny Task Group – Local Strategic Partnership (LSP) held on 24 November 2008 (enclosed)

RESOLVED – That the minutes of the meeting of the Overview and Scrutiny Task Group- Local Strategic Partnership be confirmed as a correct record for signing by the Chair.

Report of Assistant Chief Executive (Policy and Performance) (enclosed)

The Assistant Chief Executive (Policy and Performance) circulated a report on funding sources available to the Local Strategic Partnership. Due to Chorley’s comparatively well-off position in terms of depravation compared to the regional and national average, the LSP is not eligible for Neighbourhood Renewal Fund or any other deprivation-linked funding, so there is heavy reliance on partners contributions to resources, (financial, physical and people) to joint activity to support the delivery of the Sustainable Community Strategy (SCS).

The summary of funding currently available to the Local Strategic Partnership was summarised as follows:

The whole Local Strategic Partnership

Chorley Council had pump prime the Chorley Partnership over the last two years with £85,000 in 2007/08 and £90,000 in 2008/09. Partners were then asked to commit resources to projects that would help deliver the SCS, this resulted in an additional £200,000 in 2007/08 being contributed, with a further £270,000 in 2008/09 from partners own reserves or through other external funding that they had generated.

A list of approved projects was attached to the report.

Community Safety Partnership

In 2008/09 the Community Safety Partnership received £71k from Lancashire county Council as part of an Area Based Grant. The partnership was also currently bidding for capital funding that had been held back by County, however it would be likely that this funding would be allocated according to these districts in most need. Chorley and South Ribble’s Community Safety Partnership had recently joined together to more effectively use their combined budgets.

Chorley Local Childrens Trust

The Children’s Trust had a significant amount of funding £98,000 that could be commissioned over the next three years, to the third sector to help deliver projects that would best achieve its objectives, and a one-off payment of £14,000 from the Schools Forum Fund to be spent by March 2009.

A list of approved projects was attached to the report.

Other Funding that was available to the Local Strategic Partnership included:

• Lancashire Local Funding (including the Lancashire Locals Climate Change Fund)
• Local Gateway Grants
• Central Gateway Grants
• Environment ‘Community Design’ Support
• Green Partnership Awards
• Small Sites Reclamation Fund
• Youth Bank (Youth Opportunity Grants, Youth Capital Grants)

Partner organisations’ mainstream funding

The Police and NHS Central Lancashire both have money available that can be used to invest in Local Strategic Partnership activity and are encouraged to contribute to LSP projects.

In future the Local Strategic Partnership would be working with the partners to identify how best they could align the various funding streams and the work of the Partnership.

RESOLVED – That the report be noted and that a decision on whether to invite representatives on Lancashire Locals be made at the next meeting of the Task Group.

Information will be circulated at the meeting.

It was reported that Chorley had a total number of 2410 alcohol harm related hospital admissions at the end of 2006/07. When this figure was taken and compared by district population size, Chorley was the third worst out of all of Lancashire, behind only Burnley and Preston.

Further work on these statistics was currently being undertaken and would be brought to the next meeting of the Group. Members requested information that was comparative to other districts and the percentages per population across the wards. They also asked if there were any statistics available on the Alcohol Designation Order in Coppull.

RESOLVED – That the Assistant Chief Executive (Policy and Performance) provide more information on the Alcohol Harm Related Statistics for the next meeting of the Group.

For the Group to agree the list of questions for the interviewing of Allan Jones on 20 January 2009. (enclosed)

The Group agreed the suggested questions for the Chair of the Chorley Partnership, Mr Allan Jones and it was RESOLVED that they would be given to Mr Jones ahead of the meeting on 20 January 2009, that he had been invited to attend.

To confirm the dates for future meetings of the group in January, February and March 2009.

It was RESOLVED that the next meetings for the Overview and Scrutiny Task Group – Local Strategic Partnership would be held on:

            Tuesday, 20 January 2009, 6.00pm in Committee Room 1

            Friday, 27 February 2009, 10.00am in Committee Room 2

            Wednesday, 25 March 2009, 10.00am in Committee Room 2

Members of the public who have requested the opportunity to ask a question(s) on an item(s) on the agenda will be asked to put their question(s) to the Panel. Each member of the public will be allowed to ask one supplementary question within his/her allocated 3 minutes.  

There were no questions from members of the public.