Agenda and minutes

There were no declarations of interest.

The minutes of the Communities and Neighbourhoods Scrutiny Board (4) meeting held on 26^th November 2014 were signed as a true record.  There were no matters arising from the minutes.

Briefing Note of the Director of Public Health

The Scrutiny Board considered a briefing note of the Director of Public Health with an update on progress implementing the Active Citizens, Strong Communities Strategy.

The Scrutiny Board discussed the five stages to implementing the strategy, which were –

1.  Getting the building blocks in place

2.  Greater involvement of local people in our services

3.  Supporting our staff to work differently

4.  Bringing in external funding

5.  Evaluating the impact: is it working?

Implementation of the Strategy would be overseen by a multi-agency partnership chaired by the Police Commander of Coventry.  Members noted that this partnership would report to the Cabinet Member (Health and Adult Services) and (Community Development, Co-operatives and Social Enterprise) and to the Coventry Health and Wellbeing Board.  Members discussed the importance of involving a large number of key stakeholders and requested that when the item comes back to Scrutiny Board Members in 2016, some of these partners be invited to attend the meeting.

The Scrutiny Board discussed the level of risk involved with such a Strategy, and allowing residents of Coventry to do more for themselves.  Such risks included health and safety implications, litigation, achievability and resources.

The Scrutiny Board also discussed the Community Activity Directory, which was scheduled to be the considered by the Cabinet Member (Community Development, Co-operatives and Social Enterprise) on 21^st January 2015, for approval to launch on the Council’s website.  Scrutiny Board Members noted that the directory would be constantly changing and over 400 groups had already registered.  Members also noted how the directory was linked to the Council’s Customer Journey project and that staff working in Coventry Direct would have full access to the directory once it went live.

The Scrutiny Board also discussed the work of the recently established Community Engagement Task and Finish Group and requested that the Active Citizens, Strong Communities Strategy, be aligned with their work.

RESOLVED, that the Scrutiny Board:

1.  Noted the contents of the Active Citizens, Strong Communities Strategy and Implementation Plan.

2.  Recommended that the Director of Public Health report back to the relevant Scrutiny Board in 2016 on progress and key stakeholders be invited to attend the meeting.

3.  Recommend that the Community Engagement Task and Finish Group align the Active Citizens, Strong Communities Strategy with their work.

Briefing Note of the Executive Director, Place

The Scrutiny Board considered a briefing note of the Executive Director, Place concerning the European Capital of Culture and UK City of Culture programmes and the current Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) ‘UK City of Culture Consultation’.

The Scrutiny Board were invited to review the application processes for both programmes and make any recommendations to the Cabinet Member for Community Development, Co-operatives and Social Enterprise, for inclusion in a response from the City Council to the DCMS.

The consultation had a series of questions to be answered and the Scrutiny Board made their comments as follows –

Q1. Should the DCMS run a UK City of Culture 2021 competition when the European Capital of Culture selection competition would take place around the same time?

a.  Would potential candidate cities feel obliged to bid for only one title? If so, which competition would be of most interest to cities?

b.  Would stakeholders and funding bodies realistically be able to support both competitions?

c.  Should the DCMS postpone the UK City of Culture 2021 competition, and move to a UK City of Culture 2025 instead?

The Scrutiny Board recommended that applications for the 2021 and 2025 competitions should be run at the same time with a one-step application.  Members noted that the bidding criteria for the UK City of Culture would be different to the European Capital of Culture in terms of the process, tone and nature of the bid.

Q2. If the DCMS does decide to run a UK City of Culture 2021 Competition, when should the selection process take place? Would cities prefer:

a.  A bid for the UK City of Culture competition at the start of 2016, before the European Capital of Culture selection competition begins at the end of 2016?

b.  To have the two competition run simultaneously?

The Scrutiny Board were in favour of running the competitions not simultaneously, but in separate years.

Q3. How should future UK City of Culture competitions be funded?

a.  Could we ask bidding cities to pay an “entry fee” to help cover the cost of the competition?

b.  Could we ask the winning city to pay for the whole of the event of the next competition through the sponsorship funds they could potentially raise?

The Scrutiny Board noted that biddings costs were usually met by fund raising by culture organisations, private partners and Council funds.  Members felt that any bidding costs should be centrally funded by the DCMS.

Q4. What sort of organisation is required to support the UK City of Culture?

a.  Should the competition continue to be run by DCMS or do we need a new single purpose body to support it?

b.  Could it be managed within an existing organisation?

The Scrutiny Board felt that the judging for both the UK City of Culture and European Capital of Culture should be independently run by a body outside of the area or nation, who would be neutral.  Members raised their concerns about the  ...  view the full minutes text for item 23.

Report of the Scrutiny Co-ordinator

The Scrutiny Board noted the items of business scheduled for the next Scrutiny Board meeting.

The Scrutiny Board evaluated the meeting and suggested that Survey Monkey be used as a method of evaluation for the meeting.

Any other items of public business which the Chair decides to take as matters of urgency because of the special circumstances involved.

There were no other items of public business.