Issue - meetings

Report of the Executive Director of Resources

The Cabinet considered a report of the Executive Director of Resources, which provided an update on Connecting Communities proposals following a period of public consultation.

Connecting Communities was an ambitious and wide reaching approach to radically redesign services through co-production and collaboration with local communities.  The approach focussed on how services might be delivered differently in the future in the communities and neighbourhoods where there was most need and within the resources available.  The Cabinet noted that this might include joining services together to reduce the number of buildings and staff that the Council and other statutory organisations required to deliver services.

Phase 1 of Connecting Communities focussed on ten specific proposals for the delivery of £1.2m savings.  The target for 2016/17, set through the original City Centre First programme for 2016/17 was £1m, but proposals made to Cabinet in November 2015 exceeded this by £0.2m.  The ten proposals related to:-

  Proposal 1 – Play Centres

  Proposal 2 – Arena Park Library

  Proposal 3 – Willenhall Library

  Proposal 4 – Mobile Library Service

  Proposal 5 – Library Media Fund

  Proposal 6 – Central Library Opening House

  Proposal 7 – Community Library Opening Hours

  Proposal 8 – Youth services Commissioning Budget

  Proposal 9 – Public Conveniences

  Proposal 10 – Community Centres

A period of public consultation on the ten proposals took place between 7^th December 2015 and 1^st February 2016, which included a widescale engagement programme, using innovative engagement methods, with residents, community groups and partner organisations.

The report and its associated appendices detailed the outcome of the consultation, identified the impacts of each of the proposals and made specific recommendations for consideration.

The Cabinet acknowledged the receipt of a number of petitions as part of the consultation process.  In particular, 5 petitions were received in relation to Proposal 1 – Play Centres, and these were considered by the Cabinet Member for Children and Young People at his meeting held on 12^th February 2016, and 2 further petitions were received in relation to Proposal 2 – Arena Park Library and Proposal 4 – Mobile Library Service, which were considered by the Cabinet Member for Education at his meeting also held on 12^th February 2016.  In all cases, the petition organisers were invited to the meetings to present the views of the petitioners.  The Cabinet Members recommended that the contents of the petitions, which were set out in full within the report now submitted, be noted.

RESOLVED that the Cabinet:-

(1)  Note that 7 petitions were considered by the Cabinet Members for Education and children and Young People in relation to the proposals at their respective meetings on 12^th February 2016 and have been considered and included as part of the consultation process and outcomes.

(2)  Note the outcome of the consultation and the resulting equality impacts and the updated Equality and Consultation Analysis in Appendix A of the report submitted.

(3)  Approve the implementation of the proposals detailed in Appendix B of the report:-

a.  For  ...  view the full minutes text for item 121