Report of the Director of Policy, Performance and Reform attached

This report provides an overview of the Our Manchester Strategy reset, including the timescales of the work.

The Committee considered a report of the Director of Policy, Performance and Reform, which provided an overview of the Our Manchester Strategy reset, including the timescales of the work.

Key point and themes in the report included:-

·                The Our Manchester Strategy reset would reframe the existing Strategy, with it continuing to provide the overarching ambition of the city of Manchester;

·                It would reflect Manchester’s priorities for the next five years until the end of the Strategy in 2025, remaining distinctly about Manchester;

·                The overarching principles of equality, inclusivity and sustainability were at the heart of the reset process;

·                The Our Manchester Forum was the governance partnership board for the reset, overseeing the work and approving the final document alongside the Executive and Full Council;

·                A number of other strategies and plans were currently in development or due for refresh in the next 18 - 24 months and Officers were considering alignment to ensure other strategies’ aims flowed from the Our Manchester Strategy reset’s priorities, as the overarching vision for the city;

·                Early results from the engagement and research would also be fed into the corporate budget planning process for 2021/22 and the medium term financial plan; and

·                A further report detailing the reset’s engagement processes and emerging findings would be brought to the Committee for their consideration in November 2020.

Some of the key points that arose from the Committee’s discussions were:-

·                How was the Council engaging with hard to reach groups, for example those who were digitally excluded, under the current COVID restrictions around social distancing;

·                What percentage of respondents where from a BAME background and did this reflect the proportionality of these communities across the city;

·                Consideration should be given to using social media to engage with some of the hard to reach communities;

·                What role would Elected Members have in the engagement process; and

·                Was the Our Manchester Forum membership now up to full complement and had they been able to meet online yet.

The Director of Policy, Performance and Reform advised that the Council had undertaken targeted resident engagement for those communities that would typically under engage if the survey had been solely digital.  The Council had also worked closely with the voluntary and community sector in setting up this targeted engagement, which included face to face engagement in a COVID secure way.

The Policy Officer advised that Officers were currently undertaking an analysis of the responses received to the survey and it was confirmed that the Council had managed to reach 3679 residents so far.  Throughout the engagement Officers were keeping track of which communities had engaged in order to ensure that the universal offer was promoted in areas where communities were under represented.  It was confirmed that at present there was underrepresentation of residents from the BAME community but this was being supported by the dedicated targeted approach.  The survey had also been translated into the top 10 spoken languages in Manchester other than English and paper copies had been made available at Libraries and Community Hubs.  There was also work being undertaken to identify the themes of interest from different communities in order to determine whether these were similar or different to the overall themes being identified.

The Chair commented that it was important that the Council did not lose sight of all protected characteristics in undertaking this engagement activity and proposed that in the follow up report data should be provided on the proportion of these characteristics from within the city’s population and a breakdown of what has been achieved with these groups in terms of engagement.

The Committee was advised that all Elected Members were sent a briefing at the beginning of the engagement activity at the end of August and discussion with the Deputy Leader was taking place to set up virtual workshops for Elected Members to engage in the process.

The Leader advised that the Our Manchester Forum membership was now up to full complement and there had been five online workshops that had been well attended with high levels of participation.

Decision

The Committee:-

(1)       Notes the report.

(2)       Requests that in next month’s follow up report, data is provided on the proportion of all protected characteristics from within the city’s population and a breakdown of what has been achieved with these groups in terms of engagement