e-Bulletin, February 2007

We're changing the way we communicate as a partnership, so we won't be producing our Bulletins any longer. We will be disseminating more news by e-mail (with paper copies for those that don't have e-mail) and matching the information that we send to your interests and requirements.

Before the changes get underway, here is a short interim news bulletin to keep you up to speed with what the Salford Strategic Partnership is doing.

To submit any news for circulation in future, please contact Karen McCrackle on 0161 603 6804 or karen.mccrackle@salford.gov.uk

Partnership business

Diary dates
Our future meeting dates are all listed here

Executive meeting papers
At its meeting on 15th February, the partnership executive discussed progress on the Salford Agreement, the city's Community Engagement strategy, the Children and Young People's Participation strategy and the review of Salford Community Network.
The Economic Development, Learning & Skills Partnership presented an update on their performance.

The meeting papers and agenda for the partnership executive's meeting of 15th February are available here.

Protocols
We have now agreed our new partnership protocols - they can be found on the 'documents' page of this website here

Welcome new partners
The Children and Young People's Partnership have agreed their chair, Cllr John Warmisham, as their representative on Salford Strategic Partnership.

John Shelley will re-join the partnership as of our March meeting to represent Irlam and Cadishead community committee, and Adrian Dunning also comes back to the partnership as the representative of Worsley and Boothstown community committee.

The partnership executive also agreed that Greater Manchester Passenger Transport Executive (GMPTE) would be invited to join the Strategic Partnership.

Coordination Group merges with LAA management team
The coordination group brings together the lead officers from each thematic partnership, along with representatives from Salford Council for Voluntary Services, New Deal for Communities and neighbourhood management. The group coordinates and monitors partnership performance. At the last meeting it was decided that the coordination group should merge with the management team for the Salford Agreement, which, now that the process of writing the Agreement is complete, will be focussing much more on how we are doing against the Agreement's targets.

New members of the Salford Strategic Partnership (SSP) management team
The SSP management and administration team welcomes two new members of staff this month. Susan Ford joined as a training and resources officer and Phil Martin will take up a brand new post as ethnicity monitoring officer on 26th February.

Susan can be contacted on 0161 603 6808 or susan.p.ford@salford.gov.uk

Community engagement strategy
A draft community engagement strategy, which aims to provide a framework for effective community engagement across the city by all partners, has been developed over a number of months under the direction of a cross sector steering group. Salford has historically had a strong commitment to community engagement which the draft strategy will reinforce. The strategy is also in line with the approach outlined in Strong & Prosperous Communities, last year's white paper. An implementation plan for the community engagement strategy will shortly be produced that will provide detail about how the strategy will be put into action.

The strategy will be signed off by the partnership executive this month. For more information, please contact Sarah Hausaman-Roberts or Jon Stephenson on 0161 603 6806/09

Mapping partnerships
A project is underway, led by the SSP management and administration team, to map the partnerships that operate in the city, and to collect a baseline of their roles and remits. A questionnaire has been sent to thematic partnership leads to cascade to each theme's sub partnerships.
This will ultimately streamline partnership work in the city, reduce duplication and release resources. A full audit of partnerships will be added to our website when the mapping is complete. For more information, contact Marc Whalley on 0161 603 6801.

Working with Neighbourhood Renewal Advisors (NRAs)
Two NRAs are currently working with the partnership to give specific support to develop the partnership:

Reviewing the fitness for purpose of the Salford Community Network
Nicola Sugden has been reviewing whether Salford Community Network (SCN) is fit for purpose and presented her findings to the SCN and the SSP's executive last week. She found that the Community Network isn't fit for purpose and is no longer able to increase capacity of local communities to participate in local decision making and influence services delivery.
The SSP's executive unanimously endorsed Nicola's report, and the partnership will now seek to find a way of continuing the good practice that has come from SCN, as well as continuing to work closely with Salford's communities through other structures such as the nationally acclaimed neighbourhood management system.

Read the full press release from the partnership here

Using Floor Target Action Planning to create delivery plans
Cliodhna Mulhern is leading a project to embed a strategic, evidence-based approach to planning across the partnership.

Cliodhna will support us to use a technique called 'floor target action planning' to create delivery plans for the Salford Agreement. This technique will place much emphasis on challenging the effectiveness of what we currently do, on using as much information as we can to guide our decisions and on thoroughly appraising all interventions before we decide which to use.

When we have used the technique for our Salford Agreement delivery plans, it is hoped that these planning skills will be rolled out and used to produce all partnership action plans.

The process of delivery planning for the Salford Agreement began on 7th February with a half day's workshop introducing the background and the concept of floor target action planning.

The latest training opportunities from the partnership

Understanding complex communities
Date: Friday 9th March
Venue: Broadwalk Training Centre 10am - 4pm
Cost: £30, lunch provided

One day course at beginners level.

By the end of the day participants will be able to:
- Understand the history and local context of communities in Salford, political issues, economic movement and demographics
- Understand the legislation and policies surrounding diverse communities
- Identify different communities and their complex issues such as culture, seldom heard and new arrivals
- Identify organisations, networks and structures that support complex communities
- Develop an action plan for how to reach seldom heard communities

Communicating with communities
Date: Monday 19th March
Venue: Langworthy Cornerstone Auditorium
Time: 10am - 4pm
Cost: £30, lunch provided

This interactive one day course at beginners level will help you to discover what communications methods work best with different communities.

By the end of the day, participants will have:
- Critically reviewed their current methods of communicating with their target audience
- Examined the use of community profiling as a tool to help them understand the make up of their target communities
- Created a menu of communication methods tailored to their needs

Facilitation skills
Date: Tuesday 27th and Wednesday 28th March
Venue: Broadwalk Training Centre
Time: 10am - 4pm
Cost: £100, lunch provided

Two full days' training course at beginners level.

By the end of the two days, participants will be able to:
- Understand and identify basic group facilitation methods
- Deal with conflict within groups and meetings
- Understand the role of being a mediator
- Understand the use of Participatory Strategic Planning
- Identify and use different facilitation techniques
- Facilitate the development of action plans and forward planning

News from our themes
Children and Young People's Participation strategy
A new city-wide strategy has been published which helps children and young people to:

- be involved in designing services of the future
- contribute to, and benefit from involvement in their local communities
- feel that they are being heard and valued
- be able to make a difference

The strategy will be officially launched soon, so watch this space. In the meantime, contact Cath Connor with any queries.

Respect - take a stand against anti-social behaviour
In January, the Government announced that Salford had been successful with its application for Respect Action Area status. As a Respect Action Area, Salford receives additional resources from the Government to deliver projects to address anti-social behaviour in the city.

An advertising campaign is now underway to encourage Salford residents to report anti-social behaviour by phone on 0845 605 2222 or online. Read more about the Respect programme in Salford and nationwide.

Aspire to enterprise!
Salford Hundred Venture and Salford City Council have joined forces to offer a series of enterprise training taster sessions for all adult residents in Salford West. Women and mothers are particularly welcome to attend the pilot taster sessions, which include 'what is enterprise?', 'running a business', and 'making your idea a reality'.

Download the flyer

Stepping Stones
The Stepping Stones project in Salford has launched its website at www.steppingstonesinsalford.org

Salford Stepping Stones is a new and unique service for Salford residents. Funded through Neighbourhood Renewal Funds (NRF), the project is delivered in partnership by Work Solutions and Jobcentre Plus. It employs specialist advisers to offer help through training, advice and motivation to help customers move into or closer to work.

14-19 prospectus - where2nxt.com
where2nxt.com is Salford's new online prospectus for 14-19 year olds making decisions about going into education or training. The site gives impartial learning and training information to young people, teachers, Connexions advisers, careers advisers, parents and carers.

Download the invitation to the prospectus launch

Housing market report
Download the last quarter's housing market bulletin

Salford-wide news

Community Action Plans
All eight community committee areas have now published their community action plans. The plans have been sent to SSP members on CD Rom so that partners can consider incorporating communities' priorities into their plans for 2007/08.

You can order a copy of the CD Rom from Diana Martin, Neighbourhood Management Co-ordinator on 0161 793 2575 or diana.martin@salford.gov.uk

National news
Strong and Prosperous Communities implementation plan
The implementation plan for the local government white paper, Strong and Prosperous Communities was issued in January. It is available online on the Department for Communities and Local Government website

Take part in the arts debate - Arts Council England's first ever public value inquiry
The arts debate is a major programme of consultation and research to explore what people value about the arts. Its purpose is to help the Arts Council map how they can do things differently in the future to create greater value for all the communities they serve. The arts debate began in November 2006 with a series of in-depth discussion groups. The second stage centres on five broad consultation questions.

You can access the consultation documents at www.artsdebate.co.uk or by phoning 0845 300 6200. You can also post your comments directly at the online discussion forums on the arts debate website.