AGENDA ITEM NO.
1
REPORT TO:
Council
REPORT NO:
CFPO/124/08
DATE:
17 December 2008
REPORTING OFFICER:
Chief Finance & Performance Officer
CONTACT OFFICER:
Mark S Owen (Tel: 292704)
SUBJECT:
Wrexham’s Community Strategy
WARD:
N/A
PURPOSE OF THE REPORT
To enable Council to approve Wrexham’s Community Strategy 2009 – 2020.
2.
INFORMATION
2.1 The Community Strategy is the overarching strategy for each local authority
area. It must provide a long term strategic vision, based on a set of shared
ambitions and values. Producing a Community Strategy is a statutory
requirement for county borough councils in Wales under the Local
Government Act 2000 (Section 4(1)); and the Community Strategy must be
approved by Full Council prior to its implementation.
2.2 Wrexham’s current Community Strategy, Wrexham Refreshed, has now been
reviewed and updated and must be approved by each individual LSB member
organisation/partnership prior to final approval by the LSB in March 2009.
The full strategy is attached at Appendix 1. When the strategy is published it
will be in a variety of reader-friendly formats and broken down into ‘bite-size’
pieces.
2.3 A presentation on the purpose of the Community Strategy review outlining
how this was being carried out was given at the all member workshop on
22 July 2008 and the consultation document was reported to both Corporate
Governance and Policy Scrutiny Committee and Executive Board during
October for members to comment on and consider the potential impact on the
Council. Members discussed the strategy in some depth at both of these
meetings and supported the priority themes. Members also debated how the
Council’s services help to support the delivery of the strategy and paid
particular attention to the priorities the Council is proposing for the next three
years, agreeing that they would do this.
2.4 Following the end of the consultation period, the Community Strategy was
further developed to reflect what had been found. The strategy was taken to
Executive Board on 2nd December, and Corporate Governance and Policy
Scrutiny Committee on 3rd December for comments and to specifically
consider the ‘What we are going to do’ and ‘How success will be monitored’
sections for each priority theme. Executive Board agreed the
recommendation that the strategy be endorsed and taken to Full Council on
17th December for their approval. Members asked that the references to
Welsh heritage and culture be strengthened. Promoting Welsh heritage and
culture has now been included as a specific point in the strategy. Corporate
Governance and Policy Scrutiny Committee supported the strategy and asked
that reference be made in the action plan to the public open space
assessment which will be completed in 2009; this has now been included.
2.5 The Community Strategy consists of six themes:
 A place that cares for people’s health
 A place that enables people to reach their full potential
 A place that values citizenship, community spirit and social responsibility
 A place that looks after its built and natural surroundings
 A place that is safe
 A place that is economically prosperous
2.6 For each theme the following information is provided:
 Why this is important
 What is already being done
 What people have told us
 What we are going to do
 Who is involved in delivery
 Key barriers to delivery
 How success will be monitored
 How local people can contribute
2.7 In addition, there is an overall action plan which outlines the activities that will
take place in the next three to four years and how we will measure our
performance against them. This action plan is an evolving document and is
likely to be updated at least annually.
2.8 As stated in paragraph 2.2, the Community Strategy must go through each of
the LSB organisations own approval processes and therefore minor changes
to the strategy may be made before final sign off by the LSB. However, these
changes will only be to that organisation’s own contributions. If anything
significant is raised by other organisations any impact on the Council can be
brought back to Corporate Governance and Policy Scrutiny Committee,
Executive Board and Full Council as appropriate early in 2009.
2.9 The Council’s Equality Manager has been involved at all stages of the process
and specifically assisted the consultation stage. An Impact Assessment has
been carried out on the strategy, which will continue to be updated following
each organisations own approval of the strategy. The impact assessment will
then be ‘signed off’ once the strategy has been officially approved by the
Local Service Board.
3
RECOMMENDATIONS
3.1
Full Council approve Wrexham’s Community Strategy
4
BACKGROUND PAPERS
Report Ref:
Report Ref:
Report Ref:
Report Ref:
5
CFPO/78/08S
CFPO/84/08
CFPO/111/08
CFPO/XXX/08S
CG&PSC
Exec Board
Exec Board
CG&PSC
1 October 2008
14 October 2008
2 December 2008
3 December 2008
WEBSITE INFORMATION
The Community Strategy consultation was available on the Council’s web-site.
Local Service Board website – http://www.wrexhamlsb.org/index.htm
Once the strategy is approved by the LSB it will be publicly available on the Council’s
website (and the other LSB partner organisation’s websites)