Decision details

Raise awareness of the review process and key findings to date. Invite comments to gain a local perspective and develop stakeholder engagement.

The Committee received a report from the Community Funding & Development Manager.

The report gave an update on the work of the review to date and proposals for the next steps of the information gathering exercise.

The Committee were also provided with a list of community facilities identified to date across the city that were invited to complete a survey and a map of those that had responded to the facility audit.

The Committee made the following comments in response to the report:

       i.          The community facilities map needed to be kept up to date otherwise it would just be a snapshot.

     ii.          Mental health facilities were being cut across the city, those that remained were hidden away. It would be helpful to map these facilities as a signpost for people to find them.

In response to Members’ comments the Community Funding & Development Manager said that the map information is an issue. Consideration needs to be made regards data protection, keeping information up to date and the resources to do this.

In response to Members’ comments the Community Funding & Development Manager said that data management would be reviewed in future and undertook to liaise with area committees as appropriate.

Members of the public asked a number of questions, as set out below.

1.       Ms Drapper said that Foodcycle were looking for a new venue.

The Community Funding & Development Manager said that officers would liaise with the applicant if an expression of interest was submitted.

2.       Mr Carpen raised the following points about the map of community facilities:

                i.          Would it be available on line?

              ii.          Would it include responses from school students?

           iii.          Suggested keeping the map up to date by getting people to come to council events and giving feedback. This was one of the aims of the former ‘Be the Change’ initiative. People could also respond through ‘Cambridgeshire.Net’.

The Community Funding & Development Manager said

                 i.          Some community facility details included personal information. The intention was to put a list of facilities on-line once permission to publish people’s contact details had been obtained. (Contact details were obtained during the community facility mapping process). Further details would be set out in the report going to Community Services Scrutiny Committee 30 June 2016.

               ii.          There would be engagement with young people in future regarding community facilities. They could also respond to the on-line survey now.

3.       Considerable support and thanks was expressed by both the committee and members of the public in this project.

Following discussion, Members unanimously resolved to:

       i.          Note the work of the review and initial findings of the city-wide community facilities audit.

     ii.          Promote the ‘call for evidence’ stage of the review and encourage stakeholders to feed in their experience and evidence as detailed in sections 5 and 6 of the Officer’s report.