Issue - meetings

Report of the Executive Director of People

The Cabinet considered a report of the Executive Director of People, that had also been considered by Scrutiny Co-ordination Committee on 3^rd March 2017 (their minute 64/16 referred), that provided an update on consultation feedback and the outcome of engagement with local communities to explore how services might be delivered differently in the future for Phase 2 of the Connecting Communities proposals. Phase 2 comprised two overarching proposals to reshape the way that support was delivered to children and young people aged 0 to 19 years and the provision of library services in the city.

Connecting Communities was an ambitious approach to redesigning services through collaboration with local communities. Phase 1 of Connecting Communities focused on ten specific proposals, all of which were on track to deliver the £1m savings target set for 2016/2017 and £1.2m ongoing.

Phase 2 of Connecting Communities focused on how services and support could be delivered differently in local communities with the greatest need, within the resources that were available. As a consequence of cuts, a target of £3.8m was set for this work. Across all phases of Connecting Communities a total of £5m savings must be achieved, in line with the total requirement set for the original City Centre First programme, which had now been incorporated into the wider Connecting Communities change programme. 

The grant Coventry received from central Government had reduced by 49% from 2010/2011 to 2017/2018 and by 2020 this was estimated to reduce further to a 55% reduction. Due to the increase in the city’s population this equated to a 51% reduction per person from 2010/2011 to 2017/2018. The budget for the People Directorate was 70% of the Council’s net budget and so the services provided by the People Directorate needed to contribute significantly towards those savings. 

The scale of grant cuts meant the current way in which services were delivered was no longer sustainable. The financial position and the needs of residents needed to be balanced alongside making radical changes in the delivery of services. This meant working closely with residents and partners in new ways to maximise the total public funding that remained to support the most vulnerable in the city. Part of the Council’s strategy was also to work with organisations that could draw upon resources that the Council cannot access and to enable this to happen as far as possible. The delivery of the savings programme detailed in the report contributed to the total savings required of £35m by 2017/2018.

Coventry’s long-term strategy was to focus on avoiding crude cuts through closer partnership working with statutory and voluntary agencies, and communities. The Connecting Communities approach was to work with others to redesign services that could be delivered within the resources available, focusing on supporting those areas that were most in need. Connecting Communities was the overarching transformational change programme for the Council’s People Directorate which delivered a wide range of key frontline services to Coventry residents and as such further phases were likely to  ...  view the full minutes text for item 119