Agenda and minutes

Councillor Allan Macaskill welcomed everyone to the meeting and introduced Pauline Borland of Strathclyde Fire Brigade, Gavin Brown of NHS Argyll and Clyde, John Boyd of the Association of Community Councils and Brian Barker of Argyll and Bute Council who were attending their first meeting of the Community Planning Partnership.

The Minutes were accepted as an accurate record of the meeting held on 5 March 2004.

Carl Olivarius updated the Partnership on the successful launch of the “Drivesafe” initiative.  He advised that copies of the signed Charter and photographs taken at the launch would be issued to the participating organisations  shortly.  He also mentioned that 2 new organisations had signed up to the Charter since the launch.

Erik Jespersen gave a presentation on the Clinical Strategy which was currently out for public consultation.  He highlighted the major issue for Argyll and Bute as being Mental Health and also spoke regarding the trends and pressures on acute services and primary care services.

The Chair advised that the Council had set up a Policy Development Group (PDG) to formulate a response to the consultation which ends on 17 September 2004 and that the Group would be inviting some Health Board officials to give advice to them.  It was agreed that the Health Theme Group would prepare a response on behalf of the Community Planning Partnership and that this be fed into the PDG as the Partnership would not meet again until after the consultation period had ended.

Andrew Campbell updated the Partnership on the earlier discussion of the Management Committee in which two proposals had been considered.  The first proposal was that the Bute and Cowal Area Corporate Services Manager be the Area Co-ordinator and the second was that Partners fund an additional full time new or seconded post.  As Partners were unable to commit financially, the Management Committee had agreed to accept the Council’s offer of support, noting that as a pilot it would be subject to review.

Muriel Kupris advised that the Statement of Readiness complied with stage one of the guidance issued by Communities Scotland which stipulates that Social Inclusion Partnerships should integrate with the Community Planning framework.  She further advised that Ministers would be looking at the self assessment review contained in the Statement of Readiness and that on the basis of the progress made, the Partnership was in a strong position to take forward the integration of the Social Inclusion Partnership by March 2005.

Andrew Campbell advised that the report was a good example of Partnership working and that a lot of thought had been put into the proposals.  He reported that  this was a work in progress and that discussions to define various elements of the Communications Plan would take place at the next Management Committee meeting.

The Chair advised that the current contractors had come to the end of their contract and that tenders had subsequently been invited.

Lolita Lavery reported that of the 12 firms invited to tender, 5 had responded.  The tenders had been scrutinised and the preferred consultant would be notified on Monday 5 July 2004.  She advised that once appointed, their first task would be to freshen up the Citizens Panel.

Andrew Campbell reported that the Bute response was low and this would be a matter for the contractors to look at in future.  He explained that it could be an option to conduct telephone surveys in future to try and increase the number of responses received.

Andrew then discussed a few of the outcomes of the questionnaire advising that some issues do not necessarily reflect the Argyll and Bute perspective and this would need to be addressed in future.

Superintendent Park advised that the outcomes of the questionnaire relating to community safety confirmed that the Police continued to be on track with their National and Local priorities.

James McLellan advised that the Council would be building the Panels’ views on service delivery and identifying priorities into their budget process.

Gavin Brown advised that the Health and Well-being Theme Group had been looking at identifying short, medium and long term priorities from within the Joint Health Improvement Plan.  He also advised that the Management Committee had agreed a new structure for the Theme Group based on Local Networks and spoke regarding the need to establish these promptly.

Alan Milstead spoke regarding the proposal to merge the two Local Economic Fora and Theme Group 2.  He explained that this was not a straightforward merger but there was a commitment to make it work.  He advised there would be a meeting held in August to discuss the details further.

Donald MacVicar reported on a successful first meeting in which all of the actions were reviewed and priorities cut down from 7 to 6.  He advised of a not so successful second meeting which had only 7 attendees and therefore the action plan could not be approved.  However, the action plan had been circulated to all partners and hoped to get confirmation of acceptance of this at the next meeting which would be held in mid August.

Lolita Lavery advised that the Scottish Executive indicated that they wished to be more actively involved with Community Planning Partnerships and have divided the Country into various clusters.  Argyll and Bute have been included in the Highland Cluster, led by Dr Andrew Goudie, Acting Head for Finance and Central Services from the Scottish Executive.  The first cluster meeting was held in Inverness on 2 June 2004 and attended by representatives from Western Isles, Highland and Argyll and Bute Community Planning Partnerships.  She advised that Dr Goudie had been invited to attend the next  Management Committee on 11 August 2004 and Partners were invited to advise her of issues they wished to be raised with Dr Goudie.

James McLellan briefly outlined the background to the Better Neighbourhood Services Fund (BNSF) and informed the Partners of the current and future status of the BNSF in Argyll and Bute.  A discussion followed on the sustainability of projects dependant on ringfenced funding from the Scottish Executive that was then withdrawn after a period of time.  It was agreed that this was something that should be discussed with Dr Goudie as a major disincentive to partnership working.

It was furthermore agreed to adopt the recommendations contained in the report regarding the utilisation of the BNSF for year 4.

Jim McCrossan briefly outlined the content of the Draft Community Learning and Development Strategy and the timeframes for adopting the Strategy.  It was agreed that the final draft would be submitted to the Management Committee for endorsement on behalf of the Partnership.

The Chair mentioned that this agenda item was in the place of AOCB and briefly updated the meeting on progress with the Schools NPDO.

James McLellan advised that a report entitled “Making a Difference – Community Planning a Year on” had been received from the National Community Planning implementation Group and would be discussed at the next Management Committee meeting with any issues being reported back to the next Partnership meeting.

Bill Dalrymple circulated copies of the first Newsletter for the National Park.  The Community Futures programme was briefly discussed and it was agreed that this would tie in closely with the work of the Partnership in the Bute and Cowal Pilot area.

The next Community Planning Partnership meeting will be held on Friday 5 November 2004 in the Council Chamber, Kilmory, Lochgilphead,