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Decision details

Strategic Review of Community Provision, and Management Arrangements for New Community Centres at Clay Farm and Storey's Field

Decision Maker: Executive Councillor for Communities.

Decision status: Recommendations Approved

Is Key decision?: Yes

Is subject to call in?: No

Purpose:

Approve scope and approach to the review.
Approve management arrangements for centres in growth sites

Decision:

Matter for Decision

The Officer’s report outlined the proposed approach for a strategic review of community provision to ensure resources are targeted to meet existing and future needs. The review would consider facilities provided by the Council and others, also the opportunity for collaboration and engagement with local people and other stakeholders. The report also considered requests by the outside bodies responsible for new community centres in growth sites for the City Council’s involvement in management arrangements at Clay Farm and Storey’s Field.

 

Decision of Executive Councillor for Communities

       i.          Agreed the approach to the review of community provision as outlined in sections 3.4 to 3.8 of the report.

     ii.          Approved the proposed management arrangements for Storeys Field Community Centre insofar as they relate to Cambridge City Council and use of its resources.

   iii.          Approved the proposed management arrangements for The Clay Farm Centre insofar as they relate to Cambridge City Council and use of its resources.

   iv.          Delegated any further decisions in respect of Council commitments to implementation of (ii) and (iii) [above] to the Director of Customer and Community Services.

 

Reason for the Decision

As set out in the Officer’s report.

 

Any Alternative Options Considered and Rejected

Not applicable.

 

Scrutiny Considerations

The Committee received a report from the Head of Communities, Arts and Recreation. She tabled a paper setting out visitor numbers to all community centres.

 

Liberal Democrat Councillors made the following comments in response to the report:

       i.          Community Services Members would like to be appraised of sustainability issues as per other committees.

     ii.          Requested the community centre sustainability review be reported back to Community Services.

   iii.          Thanked Officers for attending Storeys Field community Centre meetings to provide advice and support.

 

In response to Members’ questions about Community Centres the Head of Communities, Arts and Recreation; Community Funding & Development Manager and Neighbourhood Community Development Manager said the following:

       i.          The City Council owned eight community/neighbourhood centres. Five of these are managed by the Council. Three of the small neighbourhood centres were directly managed by local groups. Service level agreements are in place for these and there are different information monitoring requirements as voluntary organisations do not have the resources to capture data in the same way as the Council.

     ii.          Officers undertook to provide committee Members with total community centre visitor number information after the committee.

 

The Executive Councillor said that Officers were reviewing how centres met current and future needs to inform future direction of resources and investment. A data gathering exercise would be undertaken in the first phase, then councillors and community centre users would be consulted as part of the review. No decisions would be made in advance of receipt of officer conclusions.

   iii.          Reports would be brought to committee at various stages of the work. Officers would involve and update members during the review process. Links would be made to other strategies as part of the evidence base for review.

   iv.          The community facility review would cover all facilities, including those provided in schools and churches. It would capture current use, demand and gaps.  All providers would get the same questionnaire. Collected data would be collated and reported back to committee in January 2016.

    v.          Community Centres are part of the Council’s carbon management plan. Officers undertook to circulate a link to this in respect of community centres.

 

Councillor O’Connell proposed the following amendments to recommendation (i):

 

After the end of recommendation 2.1, add:

 

With the following changes:

-        3.4: Addition of Sustainability to list of outcomes.

-        3.4: Addition of Schools for scope of work.

-        3.7: Phase two, first bullet point: Delete “Consider options for future focus of The Meadows and opportunity for any redirection of resource from there”.

-        3.7: Phase three: Delete July 2016 decision point.

-        Addition of reports to the Executive Councillor and Community Services Scrutiny Committee for approval between each phase.

 

The Executive Councillor said that points 3.4 and 3.7 did not need to be amended as the scope of the review already covered points Liberal Democrat Councillors wanted to cover.

 

The Director of Customer and Community Services referred to paragraph 3.8 of the Officer’s report which set out the timetable for the review. Reports would be brought back to committee for decision, but not for information. Officers could offer information briefings to councillors outside of the scrutiny committee.

 

Councillor O’Connell sought reassurance that the audit phase results would be reported back to committee and that resources would not be arbitrarily cut for The Meadows (it had the highest costs, but also highest usage).

 

The Executive Councillor said that resources would be determined by consultation/audit phase 1 results.

 

The Head of Communities, Arts and Recreation re-iterated that the committee would be kept involved and informed. Reports would be brought back to the committee whenever a decision was required.

 

The amendment was lost by 5 votes to 3. Councillors then voted on the original recommendations.

 

The Committee resolved by 5 votes to 0 to endorse the recommendations.

 

The Executive Councillor approved the recommendations.

 

Conflicts of Interest Declared by the Executive Councillor (and any Dispensations Granted)

No conflicts of interest were declared by the Executive Councillor.

Publication date: 12/11/2015

Date of decision: 08/10/2015