Agenda item

The Redditch Partnership Manager introduced the report and in doing so noted that Redditch Partnership was the Local Strategic Partnership (LSP) and aimed to bring together representatives from a wide variety of agencies across the public, private and voluntary and community sectors to enable partnership working for the benefit of local residents.

It was reported that when the current Partnership Manager had first started in the post, the main groups were the Redditch Business Leaders and the Redditch Community Wellbeing Trust – this group having recently been restarted.

It was noted that the Cost of Living Partnership Group was a group operating across Redditch and Bromsgrove that was chaired by the Council’s Head of Community and Housing Services. Asset based community development was covered and it was noted that this was linked to the District Collaborative.

It was highlighted that the biggest change in recent years had been the formation of a Redditch District Collaborative, which was a first district collaborative in Worcestershire to be set up, was formed due to changes nationally with the development of Integrated Care Systems (ICS). A District Collaborative brought together organisations from across the health and community sectors.

It was explained that the Wellbeing in Partnership E-Bulletin was received by all Councillors and provided local information on voluntary and community developments that could be used to pass on to local residents. The Knowledge Bank, which was a Redditch and Bromsgrove directory of community services, had recently been updated with content and made more user friendly. A fully searchable directory was available on the Council’s website and publicly available to use.

Following the presentation, the Leader of the Council and Members of the Committee thanked the officers for their hard work in facilitating the work of the Partnership and thanked for the update report.

The following matters were discussed following the presentation:

·       Asset Based Community Development (ABCD) – Members were encouraged to attend the in-person ABCD workshops, the training being available to all elected members. It was noted that the post of a community builder for under-represented communities on ABCD was currently vacant (BME ABCD position). Officers responded that there had been conversations with other community builders and partner agencies including BARN about the exact requirements and needs (including being place-based) that this post would address.

·       Youth Leaders Group within Redditch Business Leaders – It was explained that the Leader of the Council initiated this group, which was set up by inviting all high schools in Redditch area to send a small group of representatives to the Youth Leaders Business Board meetings. It was reported that the local college was also now represented on the Youth Leaders Group Board. The meetings of the Group had been hosted at different businesses as well as schools to provide young people to engage with local businesses. The Leader commented that it was hoped the next step for this initiative would be to organise a ‘travelling jobs fair’ type engagement, where business leaders would attend job events at the schools.

·       Redditch Partnership support for the work of Redditch Collaborative – Community Wellbeing Trust tried to bring together different community organisations. The Redditch Partnership facilitated and enabled agencies and organisations to come together more quickly and easily and share information and contacts. One of the aims of the Partnership was to enable community outreach workers from different voluntary and charitable organisations to engage and make connections with an array of organisations operating across Redditch and Bromsgrove.

·       Terms of reference for the Cost of Living Partnership Group – It was asked by Members that the updated terms of reference for this group be shared with Members.

·       Local community directory – It was requested that the local community directory, the Knowledge Bank, be provided in the Member Induction Pack for new Members in 2024.

·       It was highlighted that it was important that the partnership groups did not overlap in their aims and are created or stepped down as required depending on the issues most pertinent at given time.

RESOLVED that

the annual update report be noted.