Agenda item

Michael Coughlin introduced the report to the board explaining the report was for noting and, built on the work previously presented at the Local government conference.  He then invited Ben Lucas to present the report to the group. Ben went through the PowerPoint presentation on Managing Demand which covered the following points:

·         The scale of the problem facing Local Government with cuts leaving a £14.46bn shortfall, leading to public service pressure.

·         The need to find a new way to think about demand management, through looking at community resilience, early intervention, building on peoples assets, collaborative working and using citizen-centric policy.

·         The need to tailor messaging to the right audience, using social media, and community targeting.

·         The scale of the potential savings available if the demand management was reworked looking at the whole system and working with communities, using volunteers and working on early intervention.

·         In conclusion he told the board that the new system of managing demand will require the drawing of new lines of social responsibility with communities’ looking at the demand side as well as the supply. With communities taking more responsibility for their own areas and councils looking at how to change behaviour and develop shared values in communities.  

Questions were then invited from the board members and a number of topics were discussed including amongst others:

·         Concerns with dealing with other partners, including lack of joined up timescales, unwillingness of outside organisations to spend money and poor communication leading to service breakdown.

·         Community empowerment was discussed with a number of members suggesting community forums as a good way to reach out. However concerns over those involved being predominately middle class were raised and the need for good political leadership in order to make sure an underclass didn’t develop was suggested.

·         A number of members asked how the system would work when unexpected events occurred such as flooding. In these cases councils would have to go beyond their service responsibilities which some argued could mean partnerships broke down and communities felt they were not being listened to.

Ben Lucas responded to the points made explaining that whilst Local government was innovative, areas including communication, leadership and early intervention could be worked on. It was important to recognise that the social care money was always dwarfed by the care being given in the communities and with better engagement communities could be more resilient and productive. 

Decisions

The Board:

i.              Noted the report