Report of the Director of Policy, Performance and Reform

This report provides an evaluation of how the Our Manchester Strategy and approach is helping to deliver the required Council savings targets.

The Committee considered a report and presentation of the Director of Policy, Performance and Reform that provided an evaluation of the Our Manchester approach, including how Our Manchester was helping to deliver the required Council savings targets. This report sought to illustrate what progress to date had been made, through the supporting Our Manchester Monitoring and Evaluation Framework.

The Strategic Lead for Intelligence and Data Science referred to the main points and themes within the report, which included: -

·                Describing what the Evaluation Framework had delivered;

·                Information on the Bringing Services Together for People in Places (BSTPIP) programme;

·                The approach to monitoring and evaluating BSTPIP and next steps;

·                Information on a range of work streams;

·                Our Manchester Voluntary and Community Sector Grants Case studies;

·                Information on the Our Manchester Investment fund (OMIF);

·                Workforce training, and culture, to embed the Our Manchester behaviours in everything we do;

·                Communications and Engagement; and

·                Analysis of the impact of Our Manchester in delivering Council Savings.

Some of the key points that arose from the Committees discussions were: -

·                What was the difference between the OMIF and the Neighbourhood Investment Fund;

·                How was resident feedback captured and measured to enable the benchmarking of satisfaction with neighbourhoods;

·                How would Members be informed of resident engagement events;

·                How were the priorities for respective wards, as referred to within the report, identified;

·                Whilst recognising the positive outcomes for individuals and the challenge in quantifying those outcomes, the report did not provide the Committee with sufficient detail on financial investment and savings achieved to effectively scrutinise; 

·                Was Our Manchester a strategy or a branding exercise, noting that resident voluntary work and community projects had existed prior to the introduction of Our Manchester;

·                Acknowledging the improvements in providing health and social care services in multidisciplinary teams at a neighbourhood level, however the anticipated financial savings were not realised; 

·                Greater Manchester Police (GMP) were working towards consistent Neighbourhood footprints but were not yet fully aligned operationally;

·                Had staff absenteeism improved as a result of the introduction of Our Manchester; and

·                All Members should undertake the Our Manchester Experience training.

The Director of Policy, Performance and Reform informed the Committee that the Our Manchester Investment Fund was additional funding that allowed for the scaling up of those resident projects that demonstrated Our Manchester values and were sustainable. He commented that once established they could apply for future funding for projects through the Neighbourhood Investment Fund.

He stated that the Our Manchester approach involved fundamentally changing how the Council and partners worked across the city and the relationships with residents and communities, in order to deliver the Our Manchester Strategy for the city.  The approach therefore needed to become embedded in everything that we do. 

On BST PIP, he further stated that partners, including GMP were committed to aligning themselves to the neighbourhood model, however due to issues with their IT systems GMP had not operationally aligned to this service model as yet.

The Deputy Chief Executive and City Treasurer commented that it was important to understand the report in the context of a reduction in staffing resources experienced by both the Council and partners, however the ambition was to deliver and improve services to the residents of Manchester despite this. She further commented that feedback from staff had indicated that they welcomed the opportunities to engage in voluntary work to support local communities.

The Strategic Lead for Intelligence and Data Science stated that positive outcomes had been delivered for residents by staff by adopting the Our Manchester approach. He stated that this had been supported by staff attending with the Our Manchester Experience that had challenged staff to consider how they worked and the behaviours they exhibited.

The Strategic Lead for Intelligence and Data Science informed the Committee that the resident survey was an online portal, available of the Council’s website that residents could complete and this tool was one of the methods for capturing this information. In response to comments from the Committee who stated that they were unaware of this survey, Officers stated that information on this would be circulated to Members following the meeting.

In response to the priorities identified within different wards, the Director of Policy, Performance and Reform stated that these were the product of a number of different services, including Council services, housing providers and police who were working in multidisciplinary teams in neighbourhoods. He stated that these were very early days in the model of working and Members would be informed of their progress via ward coordination meetings. In response to specific ward related enquiries from Members he stated that he would discuss those outside of the meeting.

The Director of Policy, Performance and Reform acknowledged the comments regarding the financial reporting of this activity and this would be provided in future update reports. He stated that the largest investment in this programme was in the staff and this impacted on all the services the Council delivered which presented a challenge when evaluating or providing numerical outcomes and comparisons. He further added that consideration would also be given to including additional case studies to illustrate this work in future reporting, which the Chair welcomed. He further stated that the comments relating to staff absenteeism and Our Manchester Member training and information would also be included in future update reports. 

A Member further commented that consideration needed to be given to the language and terminology used throughout the report and how the information was presented. She further recommended that a future update report include information and examples of those teams applying statutory duties, such as enforcement officers and benefit officers to illustrate how they were responding to the Our Manchester approach way of working with both residents and other services.

The Director of Policy, Performance and Reform provided examples of how officers working in statutory services were encouraged to engage in different conversations when interacting with residents. The Chair requested that any future update reports include data on the numbers of staff having undertaken the Our Manchester Experience. The Director of Policy, Performance and Reform informed the Members that the Experience had been refreshed and described the intention was to deliver this to staff who, for various reasons were unable to attend the Castlefield location with the intention of having 7,000 staff having undertaken this by the end of March 2021 (3,000 staff within the next twelve months) and Directorates were encouraged to prioritise those staff attending these events.

Decision

The Committee notes the report.