Agenda item

Update from SBC Director Resilient Communities on the Key Priorities and Action Plan 2020/21.  (Attached)

With reference to paragraph 4 of the Minute of 9 September 2021, copies of progress with CPP Key Priorities and Action Plan 2020/21 had been circulated.  Mrs Jenni Craig, SBC Director Resilience Communities, thanked all partners for feeding in to the update and gave some highlights.  The aim now was to prioritise on the back of Coivd and move away from the existing Community Planning Plan.   Through the review, those priorities would be identified and the format of the report would fundamentally change to focus on targets and performance.  Officers would really value the Board’s input to that and establish how collectively we could go forward to work in the best way.  Having high partner attendance at the regular community meetings established during Covid was really encouraging in building up networks.  Members were asked to consider and advise of any obvious gaps and places needing more emphasis.  The slides would be shared with the Board.  In response to a question around any increase in unemployment following the cessation of the furlough scheme, Mrs Craig advised that while significant changes had been expected, they had not materialised.  This was being monitored closely and there were weekly joint meetings between SBC, SOSE and a number of other partners to establish an understanding of what was going on with redundancy rates, unemployment rates and job opportunities.  There was a real shortage of people for the number of jobs that were actually available and a lot of work was going on to try to understand that and match people to jobs and prepare them with the right skills.  While a lot of jobs were available, there were not necessarily the people available to fill them.  Ms Angela Cox, Principal of Borders College, advised of the balance needed between aspirations and jobs availability.  The College had seen a growth of 30% in enrolment in health and social care courses; some of that was because it was currently trendy but people came in at HNC/HND level to go on to higher level education and jobs but this was not addressing the lack of people for lower level care jobs.  The Chairman asked if consideration could be given to using blue as part of the RAG analysis to highlight those types of issues.  With regard to students in the peripheral areas of the Borders accessing College digitally, work through both Berwickshire and Eyemouth High Schools continued.  The College had also teamed up with Eyemouth Marine to have a digital hub thus targeting boat builder apprentices but also recognising that the skills were the same for carpentry.  Technical or practical trades did however require attendance in person.  During Covid, digital spokes had been tested in Farne Salmon, Heart of Duns and also piloted a couple of hybrid meetings to see how that worked.  The College was working with SBC mapping out opportunities and there were more apprenticeships in the east of region than anywhere else.  

DECISION:

AGREED to review the Key Priorities and Action Plan reporting content and format in line with the wider review of the Community Planning Partnership, and for discussion at the workshop in January 2022.