Agenda item

Evening and Night Time Offer – A vision for Lewisham

Councillor Millbank stated this was a welcome vision, but was concerned about the low number of participants in the consultation. The Strategic Community Safety Services Manager responded that the consultation took six weeks on line and officers spoke to various groups including local assemblies, businesses and licensees. It was noted that people felt they needed additional safety at night, especially to and from work.

Councillor Millbank asked what was being done to  provide support for young people, community safety, women’s safety, and asked about the Women’s Charter.

The Strategic Community Safety Services Manager stated that there has been a lot of involvement with Council Members, licensing premises, and officers had worked with colleagues from hospitals to establish how residents get to and from work during the night, and the provision of CCTV in public spaces. Also the Women’s Charter would be published on the Council’s website.

Councillor Codd said a few Council Members had been involved with this project, and although he would agree that there was not a very good response rate and representation of ethnicity. He said there was involvement from a lot of young people and a good representation from the LGBT group. He added that he felt additional consultation might be necessary.

Councillor Muldoon asked whether quality as opposed to quantity was the target for the data, as he thought the response number was too small. Councillor Millbank said to be successful this vision would need to be linked to other strategies like the Licensing, Planning and Regeneration Strategies. She asked what the next step was. 

The Strategic Community Safety Services Manager stated that this was a vision that would be incorporated into all of the Council’s strategies, and a timeframe would be difficult to state at this stage. The Chair thanked the officer for the presentation.

RESOLVED that the decision of Mayor and Cabinet noted.

Children and Young People Plan

Councillor Sorba, Chair of Children and Young People Select Committee stated that the Select Committee has seen the plan and Members endorsed it. He said as it would define the Council’s vision for the next five years he thought it would be useful to discuss it further.

Councillor Sorba asked officers to describe the challenges they would face in trying to achieve their objectives especially with the budget restraints faced by the Council.

The Executive Director for Children and Young People explained that the implementation of the plan would depend on several factors; the next big budget announcement from the government, the level of demand for services generated by austerity, housing circumstances as families struggle and need extra help from councils. She said local authorities would be looking to see if the government would address these issues, and Lewisham would then know whether they would achieve this. The Executive Director for Children and Young People highlighted that data had shown that child poverty was getting worse, and there were changes in health organisations.

Councillor Sorba stated that the Strategic Partnership Board oversees delivery of the Plan, but details of its membership were not available on the Lewisham website. He said it would be useful to publish this information on the website. The Executive Director for Children and Young People said she would ensure this is done as soon as possible.

Action >>>>>> ED CYP

Councillor Mallory commented that it was not clear in the report what the objectives, and performance indicators were. He asked when would officers know they had achieved their objective. The Executive Director for Children and Young People said it was a three year plan and yearly objectives would be added to the plans as things progressed, and these would be added to the website as appendices.

Councillor Muldoon suggested that a communication strategy would be needed to inform people. Councillor Mallory said he was concerned there were a lot of plans already within the Council, and a lot of officers time were being spent on them.

Councillor Codd commented that he hoped positive activities would be reflected in the follow-up plan to reduce undiserables e.g. parks and leisure centres. He said he would recommend that this strategy is shared with other departments to ensure everyone was on board to help achieve the Council’s objectives. Councillor Codd concluded that it was important to ensure that spaces were designed for young people to make them aware that the world was made for them.

Councillor Millbank stated that Young People should be mindful of the Council’s task, and needed to focus on this. It was noted that the Council needed to examine what was not achieved during the last plan and try to tackle them, e.g. child obesity. Councillor Sorba added that although the previous plan was for 2018 it had not stopped, work was still ongoing. The Chair thanked the Executive Director for Children and Young People, for the report.

RESOLVED that the decision made by Mayor and Cabinet be noted.