Agenda item

Consider report and Plan from SBC Service Director Children & Young People’s Services.  (Attached)

Copies of a report by the Service Director Children & Young People on the Community Learning and Development (CLD) Partnership Plan 2021-24 had been circulated.  Oonagh McGarry, CLD Team Leader, and Susan Hunter, Youth Borders, joined the meeting and gave a presentation on the Plan.  The Plan was a statutory requirement for local authorities to identify the CLD needs of target individuals and groups within the local authority area, and publish plans every 3 years containing information about the provision of community learning and development.  The Plan aimed to benefit those most impacted by Covid-19, in particular:  young people, with a particular focus on supporting positive transitions in a broad range of contexts; adults of all ages, with a particular focus on those most at risk of isolation or experiencing multiple disadvantage; and geographic communities as identified in the Scottish Borders Covid-19 Index.  By working collaboratively, the Scottish Borders CLD Strategic Partnership aimed to put CLD values into action and improve outcomes for learners and communities through the provision of co-ordinated, collaborate and targeted CLD interventions.  This would be achieved by partners working together to deliver actions that addressed the agreed improvement priorities in the Plan.  The objectives of the Plan were to reduce inequalities, recover from Covid-19, and develop the CLD partnership.  The improvement priorities in the Plan covered:

1.    Learning and Employability

2.    Health Inequalities

3.    Digital inclusion

4.    Covid-19 impact and recovery

5.    Participation and engagement

6.    Workforce development

The Partnership would monitor progress using the CLD outcomes framework.  Measures and lead organisations had been agreed for most actions.   Partners would work together over the coming months to finalise monitoring and evaluation processes, which would include the setting of targets.  Covid-19 had impacted on the Partnership’s ability to involve learners and communities directly in developing the Plan.  Evidence of need had been drawn from a range of surveys of Borders residents and extrapolated from national data.  Additional community/learner engagement would take place in year one of the Plan, which would inform priorities and actions in years two and three.  A ‘Statement of Unmet Need’ was included in the Plan which would not be met by the current identified actions, mainly due to reducing budgets/resources in partner organisations.  The Board expressed support for the work of the CLD Partnership and the Chairman thanked those responsible for the production of the Plan.   

DECISION

AGREED:

(a)       to approve the CLD Strategic Partnership Plan 2021-24 and recognise that it supported deliver of key CPP priorities for learners and communities in the Scottish Borders;

(b)       that Partner members reflected this Plan within their own organisational plans and continued to make available the existing resources which were required for the delivery of the Plan;

(c)       to reflect on the statement of unmet need and support CLD partners to explore how these areas of need could be addressed throughout the lifetime of the Plan;

(d)       to receive an annual report on progress of the Plan;

(e)       to consider the contribution of the CLD sector and how our shared objectives may be reflected in the next refresh of the CPP Community Plan; and

(f)        to recognise how a locality partnership approach to planning had supported successful community based delivery of CLD and consider how this approach may be best embedded in future locality partnership models.