Contact: Jo White, Policy Officer (Community Strategy) Ext: 5004

e-mail: [email protected]

1. Summary

1.1 This report makes recommendations in respect of a number of applications for funding from various LSPs across the County, which have either been approved by the Chief Executive or are subject to approval by the Executive Member for Community Development and Regeneration.

2. Background

2.1 A budget for supporting projects derived from the County Council's statutory duty to prepare a community strategy has been set up and this includes a budget of £208,000 for pump priming the Local Strategic Partnerships (LSPs) and to develop further community strategies.

2.2 Each of the 11 LSP's are encouraged to bid for money from this budget to support the development of their LSPs and for the pump priming of projects.

2.3 The budget is also available for the development and implementation of the Hampshire Strategic Partnership.

2.4 The Chief Executive can approve amounts of less than £2000. The Executive Member for Community Development and Regeneration can approve amounts between £2000 and £10,000. Amounts exceeding £10,000 must be approved by the Executive Member and referred, with a recommendation to the Leader for decision.

2.5 Appendix B sets out the funding criteria for which bids will be approved. They are intended as guidelines and not prescriptive rules.

2.6 These decisions support Aim 4 of the Corporate Strategy (Building Strong and Safe Communities) by working together with local people to build strong and safe communities for everyone. In addition these decisions support the themes of the Community Strategy for Hampshire.

2.7 The relevant local Member's views are taken into account through the LSP mechanism.

3. Current bids

3.1 The following bids have been approved by the Chief Executive:

3.1.1 The sum of £120 for Test Valley Local Strategic Partnership to host a meeting of the newly formed Test Valley Partnership Management Group to be held at Jermyns House on the 1^st December 2005. The Test Valley Partnership have asked partners to host these meetings so that they are not perceived as Local Authority dominated and that is why this venue has been selected as opposed to Hampshire County Council offices.

3.1.2 The County Council has been invited to join the Community Planning Network which is under the umbrella of the Public Services Managers Network, facilitated by consultant Danny Chestermann. As well as a very useful information sharing network, this includes a programme of three meetings in 2005 covering structured information exchange and specific themes with speakers. The network includes practitioners from County, District and Unitary authorities from around the country, including Counties which border on Hampshire. The cost is £480 for the year and the meetings held in London will be attended by the Community Strategy Manager or the Policy Officer.

3.1.3 The sum of £1000 for the Havant Local Strategic Partnership as a contribution towards a children's participation event to be held on the 3^rd November at Staunton Country Park. The contribution will be used for heating and transport costs as well as employing a photographer to capture the event.

3.1.4 Other contributions have been secured from Havant Borough Council and Hampshire Children's Fund.

3.2 The following bids are for consideration by the Executive Member for Community Development and Regeneration:

3.2.1 The sum of £2,500 for the Havant Local Strategic Partnership as a contribution towards the cost of establishing a digital media project working with a group of young people from Leigh Park to address car crime and dangerous driving.

3.2.2 A recent police report on the perception of residents and businesses in Warren Park and Battins showed that respondents considered `racing around in cars' theft from vehicles and stolen cars to be serious local problems.

3.2.3 Havant Borough Council Arts Development will work with the Community Safety Partnership and Cass Productions (Eastleigh based digital media company) to address these issues and encourage the young people to consider crime and consequence.

3.2.4 Young people would work with a visual artist and video maker to create, storyboard and edit their own project to address these issues. The groups involved would devise drama and cartoon style animations to create an entertaining and informative CD-Rom to address these issues.

3.2.5 The total cost of the project is £5,000 and matched funding has been secured by Havant Borough Arts Development Unit and the Community Safety Partnership (£2,500). The project will help the Havant LSP meet its Community Strategy targets by improving the quality of life by continuing to reduce crime and disorder and making a safer community. The project will commence as soon as all the funding has been secured.

3.3 The sum of £10,000 for the Hampshire Strategic Partnership as a contribution to support the initiation of market town and parish plan processes.

3.3.1 Local community planning process, including the development of parish, village and market town plans through such processes as health checks and appraisals provide an important bottom up approach to identifying local priorities and actions. There is merit in linking these to LSPs in as far as they might support evidence for the District Community Strategies and complimentary action plans.

3.3.2 For market town and parish plans and other very locally focused community planning processes, it is often the case that a lack of small amounts of funding is a barrier to initiating the process. These processes provide an important opportunity to add value to the development, review and implementation of community strategies. It is proposed that this funding should be allocated on the basis that the process of plan development is linked with local community strategies and that LSPs are provided with information from the agencies which help facilitate those processes.

3.3.3 It is proposed that support provided from the Community Strategy budget will not be made which replace any resultant disinvestment by agencies which currently support such start up costs and the funding will be reviewed on a regular basis.

3.3.4 The precise process for dealing with applications for support under this initiative will be drawn up with Community Action Hampshire, Hampshire Market Towns Partnership and Hampshire Association of Parish and Town Councils.

3.5 The unspent funds from 2003/04 (£33,470) were carried over into this financial year. Added together this gave a total of £241,470. If the bids above are approved, against the 2004/05 budget, the total spent is £91,374 leaving £150,096 (see attached appendix A).

Recommendations

The following recommendations are sought:

1. To approve the following allocations:

The sum of £2,500 for the Havant Local Strategic Partnership as a contribution towards the cost of establishing a digital media project working with a group of young people from Leigh Park to address car crime and dangerous driving.

The sum of £10,000 for the Hampshire Strategic Partnership as a contribution to support the initiation of market town and parish plan processes.

Section 100 D - Local Government Act 1972 - background papers

The following documents disclose facts or matters on which this report, or an important part of it, is based and has been relied upon to a material extent in the preparation of this report.

NB the list excludes:

1. Published works

2. Documents which disclose exempt or confidential information as defined in the Act.

File FM Exec Member Location: Community planning/committee

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