Agenda and minutes

None.

The minutes of the last meeting held on 24 September 2020 were accepted as a true and accurate record.

Invitees

·         Cllr David Mayer – Cabinet Member for Community and Resources

·         Rhys Cornwall – Head of People and Business Change

·         Tracy McKim – Policy Partnership and Involvement Manager

·         Rachael Davies – HR and OD Manager

The Head of People and Business Change gave an overview of the report. Under the Equality Act (2010) the Council is required to report annually on the progress it has made against the strategic equality objectives contained within its Strategic Equality Plan. The Equality Act also requires Local Authorities to publish staff equalities data, which this report also contains.

This report is the fourth and final Annual Report on progress set out in the Strategic Equality Plan 2016-2020 which was approved by Council in 2016. The council’s new Strategic Equality Plan was received by Cabinet and agreed at our July meeting and is now published on our website.

Since implementing the previous Strategic Equality Plan back in 2016, we have built on our strong commitment to partnership working and have engaged with staff, consulted with external stakeholders and increased our community engagement. The previous plan enabled us to form a basis of measures and objectives, and how these affected our citizens. The measures we put in place through the 9 Equality Objectives, were used to indicate our successes as well as identify where there was room for improvement. The changes made and the path ahead are encouraging; by reflecting on the learnings from this strategy, we move forward with purpose and with a clear direction of improving the lives of everyone in Newport.

Highlights from the past year include-

• The Apprenticeship Scheme was rolled out successfully and NCC were finalists in the ACT Training Employer of the Year award 2019
• ‘EU Citizens Meeting’ was established and we worked in partnership with third sector organisations as well as local EU communities to develop our work in this area
• The successful implementation of our B.A.M.E. Network, which we continue to build on and improve to ensure Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic voices are heard in decision making
• The ‘Work Based Learning Academy’ has created job clubs, training courses and bespoke 13-week training provisions to support young people seeking employment.
• Participation in Oxford University’s ‘Inclusive Cities Programme’ – a knowledge exchange in relation to migrant communities
• The Lighthouse 55+ scheme for older people celebrated its first anniversary and supported over 250 people in the year (referrals to the floating support scheme, are now prioritised to ensure crisis/emergency referrals are dealt with as quickly and efficiently as possible)
• A further 9 families (40 people) have been resettled, under the Vulnerable Persons Resettlement Scheme
• Preparatory work in 2019-20 for the new supported housing scheme for 6 young homeless people, paved the way for the scheme to open in early 2020/21. This was only possible due to the excellent partnership working from our teams and partners such as Newport City Homes and Llamau.
• Our statutory consultation was completed on our Schools Accessibility Strategy, which aims to improve and  ...  view the full minutes text for item 3.

Invitees

-          Sally Jenkins – Head of Children and Young People Services

-          Chris Humphreys – Head of Adult and Community Services

-          Mary Ryan – Head of Corporate Safeguarding

The Head of Corporate Safeguarding gave an overview of the report. This report was due to be presented to scrutiny in March 2020, due to Covid measures in place this was not possible.

Assurance to the council that all areas of concern have been reviewed from March. The areas of priority have changed a little due to a change in legislative amendments due in Oct 2020, realigned to March 2022 for the Deprivation of Liberty work. Progress within all council areas will be reported within the 20/21 report

The Head of Corporate Safeguarding advised the report is a combination of scrutiny requests for reporting to reduce and the WAO directive on what needs to be shared with Scrutiny. Going forward, the service area is completing a self- assessment toolkit for all the council service areas to complete and this will provide the basis of future reports to scrutiny.

NCC officers continue to be active members at all levels of the Gwent safeguarding Board, both children and adults and also continue to host the VAWDASV regional team and attend the VAWDASV partnership Board. During 2019/20 the Council held 2 local safeguarding network events that were attended by statutory, specialist services, volunteers and Members who work within Newport City. 

The ADULTS AT RISK internal audit reported a good service with one weakness noted, the delay in Strategy meetings with police. This is now progressed with the development of the SAGEGUARDING hub based in Civic Centre.

Wales Audit Office reported that the council consider Safeguarding to be an important area of its corporate activities and its ethics is that Safeguarding. involves us all

CIW: 1.Focussed adult services- positive

         2. Focussed information advice and assistance- for child and adults.. noted clear processed for citizens and co-location of police and DA services very positive.

JICPA: 1^ST JOINT INSPECTION OF ALL INSPECTORATES IN Wales, piloted in Newport within children services in Dec 2019. Positive report, effective joint working arrangements and the development of the risk assessment tool for child criminal exploitation an area of evidence of strong partnership working.

The Head of Corporate Safeguarding then advised the committee of the latest developments -

1.The safeguarding champions was launched in January 2020, and continued throughout lock down via virtual means to support each service area within the council.

2.MandatoryElearning for all new staff, volunteers and members was delayed due to covid requirements an issues, but launched in August 2020 and all staff and service areas encouraged to complete. This performance will form part of reporting to scrutiny.

3.Development of tiered training with reference to safeguarding for all staff, volunteers and Members is continuing and update will be provided in 20/21 report.

4. Newport Safeguarding Hub was established during 2019/20 and is no longer a pilot but part of established practice. Further developments during 20/21  ...  view the full minutes text for item 4.

a)      Forward Work Programme Update

b)      Actions Arising

c)      Information Reports

Invitees;

-       Gareth Price – Head of Law and Regulation

The Head of Law and Regulation informed the Committee of the topics due to be discussed at the next committee meeting:

29 January 2021, the agenda items;

-       2021-22 Budget and Medium Term Financial Projections