Agenda item

Ellie Greenwood, Senior Adviser introduced the report which outlined the proposed piece of work on community safety resilience.

Ellie invited Kersten England, Chief Executive of Bradford MBC and Solace lead for community safety and resilience to present her thoughts on resilient communities and the work Bradford had done in their area.

Kersten informed the Board that, alongside prosperity, she believed there were three key conditions needed to create resilient communities, which were:

·       Infrastructure for community life – places and spaces bringing people together to build bonds, where communities can create opportunities.

·       Engagement and participation of the whole community in what is happening in their locality ensuring they have a meaningful say in shaping their communities.

·       A whole system and agencies working with a deep insight into their localities, focusing on early intervention strategies.

Kersten commented that local authorities had a critical role to play, acting as conveners for communities within their localities, and noted the challenges of cuts, loss of community infrastructure (e.g banks, religious institutions) and absence of a coherent policy programme on communities over the past decade. She stressed that Bradford did not have all the answers and that much of what it was doing was not unique, but highlighted specific features within Bradford that are aimed at building resilience in the city:

·       Area committee structures – based on constituency boundaries, with Ward Officers supporting both the committees and ward councillors. Ward Officers have daily involvement with youth and environmental services and support to the VCS, which starts to build a locally based and responsive approach.

·       Asset based approach aimed at building resilience from a strength based approach. The council provides seed money, removes barriers and supports fund raising by local organisation, with a facilitated platform showcasing community action; Kersten noted that this is a model that applies beyond community safety to COVID, flooding etc. 

·       Locality based prevention – daily and habitual knowledge sharing of all agencies and sectors operating in an area with a shared understanding of individuals and families in communities, allowing issues to be addressed quickly before escalating to agency responses.

·       Legacy of programmes from the late 1990s and early 2000s with community anchor organisations at locality level often asset owning and able to support different activities, such as children’s education, employment opportunities. There is a clear difference between communities that have these anchor institutions and those that don’t.

Kersten also talked about the factors she considered to be critical for success:

·       Diversity of workforce – representing and reflecting the community they serve with over 30% of residents, 28% of their workforce and 24% of senior management roles were from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic Communities.

·       Celebrations and events – recognition and celebration of different identities and beliefs with cross-community interactions.

·       Community mediators – from different backgrounds and communities to tackle issues within communities, e.g. anti-social behaviour, extremism, counter-terrorism and serious and organised crime. 

·       Enablers included a comprehensive and correlated set of data, policies on asset transfer and commissioning, communications and engagement, all of which had benefitted the council during COVID.

Following the discussion, Members made the following comments:

·       Members commented the importance of structures reflecting diversity within communities needed to be further strengthened and with COVID-19, there was risk of increased risk of people feeling not part of their wider communities. Kersten responded that ‘Bradford For Everyone’ an organisation outside of the council with representatives from all parts of the district was overseeing the delivery of the local integration programme, supporting community mediation, hate crime, anti-groomer critical thinking and development and district vales.

·       Members commented with the difficulties of COVID-19 there was a decline in intervention programmes being delivered due to the lack of face-to-face interaction, with local authorities needing support to reclaim online space reaching out across all platforms. Kersten responded that they had tried to maintain youth facing programmes in Bradford and had rolled out COVID Youth Ambassadors with diverse backgrounds to engage with thousands of young people each week. Regular meetings were held with the ambassadors to go through feedback and critique on the overall approach to COVID with insight from people across all online platforms.

·       Members commented sharing case studies of best practice across the country was key to managing solutions together and asked how could this be done through the LGA faster to reach those local authorities needing support and further guidance.

·       Members commented the report and proposed work built a strong platform for the LGA to go to government and request support, policies to be put in place at national level and funding to reinvest in these communities.

The Chair thanked Kersten for her stimulating and detailed overview on community safety resilience within Bradford.

            Decision:

Members of the Safer and Stronger Communities Board noted the report.

Action:

·       Officers to further scope out and take forward the proposed areas of work on community resilience.