Agenda item

Tania Townsend, Children's Partnership Development and Strategy Manager, introduced the report that summarised the progress of the Fair Futures Commission recommendations.

The following main points were made in the discussion:

•               The Fair Futures Commission sought to reimagine Islington as a fairer, child-friendly borough, taking account of the borough’s inequalities and the changing political and financial landscape. The Commission was led by young people and informed by young people’s experiences.

•               The Commission had held a number of engagement events prior to concluding. These included borough tours led by young people, showing council officers their local area through their eyes, and a “Fair Futures Hack” event where young people proposed solutions to local issues.

•               The Commission had considered the impact of austerity on young people’s lives. It was commented that austerity had affected young people from both lower and middle incomes and some of the young people taking part in Commission events had lived the majority of their lives under austerity.

•               The Commission’s recommendations were focused around five long term ambitions: 21st century skills for growing up, 21st century skills for work and the future of work, a child-friendly place to live and grow, connected communities, and alliances for ambitious and fairer futures.

•               Work to implement the recommendations extended beyond local authority services for children and young people; all public services could learn from the recommendations.

•               The Commission’s recommendations had informed many high profile council programmes, including the ‘100 Hours Work of Work’ initiative and the ’11 by 11’ cultural enrichment programme.

•               The Commission had recommended that young people’s voices should be heard in development proposals. This was to be trialled in the Holloway Prison development and council new build schemes.  

•               Work to make Islington a child-friendly borough included the further development of play streets and developing affordable workspaces with childcare facilities. The Commission’s recommendations had led to the removal of ‘No Ball Games’ signs from estates.

•               Islington Council was developing a young entrepreneur mentoring programme.

•               In response to the Commission, a specific policy had been included in Islington’s draft Local Plan about developing a child-friendly borough. 

•               Young people had reported feeling unsafe on public transport and the council was engaging with the British Transport Police to address this.

•               The Commission had been influential across London and other boroughs, as well as the GLA, were currently developing their own commissions.

•               The Commission had been an effective vehicle for challenge and change. The Commission’s recommendations had changed mind-sets within the council and partner organisations. It would be important to continue to collaborate with young people in future.

•               The Committee queried what had been learned from the process of carrying out the Fair Futures Commission, what the challenges had been and what could have been done better. In response, it was advised that it can be challenging to engage with certain groups of young people, however, the Chairs of the Commission had been very helpful in engaging with ‘hard to reach’ young people and establishing a safe space for them in which to contribute. It was also commented that the process could have benefited from more targeted engagement on estates as this may have encouraged greater numbers of young people to take part.

•               The Committee noted the importance of meaningful engagement with young people; it was essential that engagement led to tangible outcomes. Officers involved in the Commission were providing guidance to other services on how best to engage with young people in a meaningful way.

•               Over 250 young people had engaged with the Fair Futures Commission.

•               A member of the public commented that the Fair Futures Commission recommendations made no mention of the climate. Officers commented that the climate emergency was very important to Islington’s young people however this was not a prominent theme at the time the recommendations were drafted. It was suggested that if the Commission was held again now, the climate emergency would likely feature as a strong theme.

•               A member queried the implementation of Islington’s play streets scheme, commenting that many of the streets seemed to be based in traditionally middle-class areas, and asked if more could be done to target the development of new play streets in areas with the highest levels of need. In response, officers advised that they would look into this matter further.

•               The Committee queried the budget for delivering the Fair Futures Commission recommendations. In response it was advised that all recommendations were delivered through existing resources. Many of the recommendations could be progressed through staff time, rather than specific expenditure. 

The Committee thanked Tania Townsend for her attendance.

RESOLVED:

That the update on the Fair Futures Commission recommendations be noted.