Agenda item

Councillor Kaya Comer-Schwartz, Executive Member Community Development was present for discussion of this item and made a presentation to the Committee, a copy of which is interleaved.

During discussion the following main points were made –

·         Areas of responsibility included VCS, Resident engagement, Arts and Culture, Equalities and Community Cohesion and Licensing

·         Noted that a new VCS strategy was launched for 2016/20 and new grants awarded to 50 VCS organisations. Long term – 3.5 year contracts will provide stability for organisations and enable them to plan and develop their offer

·         Islington Community Chest programme is a small grants programme in conjunction with Cripplegate Foundation and in 2016/17 4 funding applications were made for the Islington Community Chest of which over 30 were awarded a grant

·         The Council provides an Islington funding toolkit which has been established in partnership with  VAI and over 50 staff from Islington’s VCS community and the Council are trained to use this resource

·         Noted that there is a new VCS premises allocation programme and there is a review of Council’s current allocation of premises to VCS organisations to identify opportunities to provide affordable work space for the sector

·         Work is being undertaken place with strategic partners and the Cally Good Neighbours scheme, established in partnership with Housing Operations and Cripplegate had proven extremely successful

·         There were 15 Ward Partnerships and the support arrangements have been reviewed and a co-ordinator appointed

·         Under the Local Initiatives Fund each ward has a budget of £15000 for small grants for a variety of activities that benefit residents in the ward

·         Community Development through Community Centres and TRA’s is taking place, as well as significant youth engagement

·         New projects for 2017 included Arts on Estates Programme and an Estates gardening project

·         Noted achievements and successes in relation to Arts and Culture including the Inspiring Islington Arts Strategy with a focus on partnership working and brokerage to align limited resources and to share expertise

·         In relation to Equalities Equality events delivery have been supported over the past year and Equality key dates have been marked and promoted. The Heritage Services launched the Islington’s Pride LGTB archive project in January

·         The Equalities work supports a diverse workforce and there are five Council staff forums for the Disabled, LGTB, Carers, Women and BME. There is an inspiring Leaders programme which has been relaunched to support staff in underrepresented groups to develop the skills and experience to progress

·         The Council are tackling inequality through the Equality objectives set in 2015 including tackling social isolation experienced by adult social care users, tackling hate crime through increased reporting and detection, increasing the proportion of BME and disabled staff at senior level

·         In relation to Licensing the number of late night premises is slightly increasing year on year but the number remaining open after midnight remains static. Applications received for new licences tend to be of a high quality and compliant with the Licensing policy

·         The Licensing policy is to be reviewed this year to be in force for January 2018 and Licensing and Public Health have partnered with the London School  of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine to undertake a number of academic reviews to gauge the success of interventions

·         In response to a question it was stated that the provision of green space on Andover Estate for gardening projects could be looked at

·         In response to a question on the under representation of staff at higher levels, it was stated that there is an anonymised application form and a rigorous recruitment process takes place. The staff equalities data showed that things were improving, but the higher levels of management were still suffering from lack of BME staff and this is the reason the inspiring leadership scheme had been introduced

·         Discussion took place as to the funding for the Borough of Culture award and that if Islington were not to win small amounts of funding would still be available

The Chair thanked Councillor Comer-Schwartz for attending and her presentation