* Priority Project Lead. Further Education rep for all 3 colleges within the city - City College Southampton; Itchen College & Taunton s College

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1 Southampton Connect 1 st Anniversary Review Initial Thoughts as at 1 st March 2012 (Henry Pavey, Manager; Strategic Partnerships, Southampton City Council) 1. Introduction: 1.1 As Southampton Connect approaches its first anniversary in April 2012, this paper sets out my personal thoughts and observations of its progress to date; and then sets out some initial thoughts for Southampton Connect consideration to enhance its effectiveness and inclusiveness around: a) Future participants and representation including links to the thematic partnerships b) Chairing & Meeting Frequency c) Focusing on what matters most but ensuring collaborative ownership of the business d) Tracking impact 2. Southampton Connect Progress to Date: 2.1 Launched in April 2011, Southampton Connect is our unique collaborative city leadership approach which is already delivering positive change through its priority projects programme, which in turn is securing outcomes that lead to a better city and improved quality of life. It is worth reminding ourselves that it is a completely different approach to the previous Southampton Partnership in that it is our local construct for addressing our local issues without being directed or inspected by regional or central Government. It is about collaborative working in action, peer support, bringing something to the table and getting results. It is not about weighty reports, hierarchies, command & control or holding partnerships to account. As such, it has a completely different level of ownership and allegiance afforded to it; and it has secured some rapid and notable achievements including: a) Developed and promoted a unique collaborative brand and profile. b) Agreed its programme of priority projects focusing on what really matters. c) Launched its first ever Southampton Connect Plan d) Articulated a fresh, modern and succinct vision for the city: Southampton a connected city for growth and creativity; gateway to a world of opportunities. 2.2 It is pleasing to note that this rapid progress has created a sense of purpose, energy and commitment amongst Connect participants from which a solid platform has been established for building upon and taking forward our citywide collaborative approach. The level of individual commitment to Connect by its participants is strong, as demonstrated through attendance and input at meetings; leadership of priority projects; promoting Connect within their own organisations / representative umbrella bodies; etc and needs to be sustained and even enhanced going forward in its mission of making connections work. Connect has also generated interest from those on the outside with a number of requests to join being received over the last year. 2.3 The following initial thoughts are presented for Connect s consideration with a final set of proposals to be agreed at Connect s 12 th April 2012 meeting. 3. Future participants and representation including links to the thematic partnerships: 3.1 Connect currently comprises of 15 representative city leaders as follows: Agency / Organisation Business Solent Further Education rep for all 3 colleges within the city - City College Southampton; Itchen College & Taunton s College Hampshire Chamber of Commerce Hampshire Constabulary Hampshire Fire & Rescue Service Hampshire Probation Higher Education rep for both universities within the city - Southampton Solent University and University of Southampton Jobcentre Plus NHS Southampton City Skills Funding Agency Southampton City Council 1 * Priority Project Lead Representative Sally Lynskey, Chief Executive* Lindsey Noble, Principal & Chief Executive, City College* Jimmy Chestnutt, Chief Executive* Chief Superintendent Dave Thomas Jason Avery, Southampton Group Manager Maria Galovics, Southampton LDU Manager* Van Gore, Vice Chancellor, Southampton Solent University* Bernadette Hagan, Operations Director* John Richards, Executive Director Andrew Mortimore, Director of Public Health* Alan Jenkinson, Relationship Manager Alistair Neill, Chief Executive*

2 University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust Southampton Voluntary Services Dawn Baxendale, Director for Economic Development* Mark Hackett, Chief Executive Jo Ash, Chief Executive 3.2 As anyone who has worked within the field of boards and partnerships knows, one of the biggest challenges is the fine balancing act with any form of collaborative arrangement between inclusiveness and ensuring that all interested stakeholders are represented and effectiveness as too big a membership can make it an unwieldy talking-shop rather than an action focused group. In other words, how many seats should be around the table? With its current 15 representatives, it could be said that Connect has the right balance of effectiveness and inclusiveness? Yet, over the last year requests to join have been received from: a) Cultural sector (3 rd Nov 2011 business report & at 5 th Jan 2012 meeting) b) Head Teachers (3 rd Nov 2011 business report) c) Prince s Trust (Through direct correspondence to Connect s Chair) d) Solent NHS Trust (Through direct correspondence to Connect s Chair) 3.3 In addition, the relationship between Connect and the following key thematic partnerships needs to be articulated recognising that, unlike the previous local strategic partnership model, Southampton Connect is not about holding partnerships to account: a) Children & Young People s Trust b) Health & Wellbeing Board c) Safe City Partnership d) Southampton Energy Partnership e) Southampton Heritage & Arts People (SHAPe) f) Southampton Housing Partnership 3.4 One approach to addressing the relationship and linkages with the thematic partnerships could be to implement a Connect Link principle whereby named Connect participants would provide a direct link between Connect and Thematic Partnerships by: a) Providing a visible and direct interface between the Southampton Connect and their respective Thematic Partnership. b) Representing Southampton Connect at their respective Thematic Partnership meetings and ensure that they are kept updated on the work of the Southampton Connect. c) Championing the City Vision, ensuring alignment of activities to the Southampton Connect Plan priority projects, promoting the City Brand and encourage its continuing adoption where appropriate. d) Encouraging their respective Thematic Partnership to continually seek new collaborative connections and opportunities for cross-partnership. e) Representing their respective Thematic Partnership, as well as their own organisation, at Southampton Connect a twin-hatted role. f) Providing verbal feedback from their respective Thematic Partnership meetings to Southampton Connect either through a standing agenda item or when requested. g) In collaboration with their respective Thematic Partnership Chair, identifying any specific issues or challenges which are hindering progress and, as a consequence, should be bought to the attention of the Southampton Connect for consideration. 3.5 There are also the potential linkages into the Partnership for Urban South Hampshire (PUSH) and the Solent Local Enterprise Partnership (Solent LEP) to consider. 2

3 3.6 In bringing all this together, acknowledging that it is highly unlikely that partners will vote themselves off Connect, and by adopting a Connect Link principle outlined in para 3.4, then I recommend that Connect considers increasing its membership from 15 to 18 by inviting a Culture sector rep; a Head Teacher rep; and a Solent NHS Trust rep as follows: Agency / Organisation Representative Connect Link Business Solent Sally Lynskey, Chief Executive Further Education rep The 3 college principals are requested to confirm their Consortium 2012/13 rep by the 12 th April Connect. Hampshire Chamber of Commerce Jimmy Chestnutt, Chief Executive Hampshire Constabulary Chief Superintendent Dave Thomas Hampshire Fire & Rescue Service Jason Avery, Southampton Group Manager Safe City Partnership Hampshire Probation Maria Galovics, Southampton LDU Manager Higher Education rep The 2 university vice chancellors are requested to confirm their 2012/13 rep by the 12 th April Connect. Jobcentre Plus Bernadette Hagan, Operations Director NHS Southampton City John Richards, Executive Director Andrew Mortimore, Director of Public Health Health & Wellbeing Board Skills Funding Agency Alan Jenkinson, Relationship Manager Southampton City Council Alistair Neill, Chief Executive Dawn Baxendale, Director for Economic Development Solent LEP; PUSH; Southampton Energy Ptnrsp; Southampton Housing Ptnrsp University Hospital Southampton Mark Hackett, Chief Executive NHS Foundation Trust Southampton Voluntary Services Jo Ash, Chief Executive Culture rep (new) SHAPe & Southampton Cultural Development Trust Head Teacher rep (new) Children & Young People s Trust Solent NHS Trust (new) 3.7 My advice is that with 18 participants, Connect is probably at the upper limit of its potential effectiveness and I would suggest that this number is kept under review. 3.8 With regard to The Prince s Trust, at this point in time within this paper I have not recommended that they be invited to join as they have been invited to Connect s 12 th April meeting to discuss how their programmes might connect more strongly with Connect s aims and priority projects programmes, specifically their Enterprise Programme and the Team Programme. This face-to-face discussion with The Prince s Trust will enable Connect to form its own view as to whether The Prince s Trust should be invited to join as a participant. Future participants and representation including links to the thematic partnerships report author s recommendations for Connect s consideration: a) Invite a culture sector representative to join Connect. b) Invite a Head Teacher representative to join Connect. c) Invite a representative from Solent NHS Trust to join Connect. d) To consider the request to join from The Prince s Trust in light of the discussion with them at the 12 th April Connect meeting. e) Implement the Connect Link principle as outlined in para 3.4. f) Request that the 3 college principals confirm their 2012/13 Further Education representative by the 12 th April Connect meeting. g) Request that the 2 university vice chancellors confirm their 2012/13 Higher Education representative by the 12 th April Connect meeting. h) That Connect agree to keep their membership under constant review to ensure that the balance between effectiveness and inclusiveness is appropriate going forward. 3

4 4) Chairing & Meeting Frequency: 4.1 For its first year of operation, Connect has been chaired by the Chief Executive of Southampton City Council (SCC) and has met on a monthly basis, usually the first Thursday of every month from 0900 to 1200hours. 4.2 Looking at the chairing first, it is probably fair to say that this has been has been right approach to date in order to ensure that Connect got off to a good start. SCC s role under the previous Southampton Partnership (local strategic partnership) regime was set out within The Local Government & Public Involvement in Health Act 2007 in that its role was defined as being the democratically elected strategic leaders and convenors of local partnerships in the wider governance of their localities with responsibilities for initiating and maintaining momentum in the LSP, ensuring appropriate representation across the different sectors and the scrutiny of the actions of LSP partner authorities. That Act was still in place when Connect was established as the replacement to the Southampton Partnership and, as such, SCC continued with the role as set out in the Act but over the last year the Coalition Government has abolished the Act along with the requirement to prepare a sustainable community strategy. 4.3 Given the demise of the Act, the role of the local authority has changed especially when recognising that Connect is our local construct for addressing our local issues without being directed or inspected by regional or central Government. It is not a construct of Southampton City Council or part of its infrastructure. Connect s strength is the fact it is not controlled by any one organisation, but that it is for all intents and purposes a coalition of city leaders coming together and wanting to work together to tackle the issues facing Southampton, such as the ongoing impact of the recession. The departure of the report author from SCC at the end of March will further demonstrate that Connect is independent and not solely reliant on SCC. 4.4 Going forward, I think that Connect would benefit from a Chair and a Vice Chair to agenda plan, run meetings and progress business. I would recommend that the Chair is drawn from within Connect s membership on an annual basis with the Vice Chair position being held permanently by Southampton City Council. This arrangement would further demonstrate independence but also at the same time ensure that the local authority plays an appropriate role in the running of Connect. 4.5 Moving on to its meetings, the level of commitment by Connect participants to its monthly meetings over the last year has been strong. Venues are rotated through partners hosting, and again this has worked well even though on some occasions the size of the meeting room has ensured a degree of intimacy! 4.6 Another plus point to the monthly meetings is that, by meeting on such a regular basis, trusting relationships can be formed by key partners and potential opportunities identified and explored. If Connect was to meet, for example on a quarterly basis, then it is extremely doubtful that such productive and trusting relationships would be formed. As such, I would suggest that Connect retains its monthly meetings in order to facilitate the level of collaborative working and deep understanding required for the City of Southampton. Chairing & Meeting Frequency report author s recommendations for Connect s consideration: a) That Connect considers having both a Chair and a Vice Chair going forward. b) That the Chair is drawn from within Connect s membership on an annual basis. c) That the Vice Chair is held by Southampton City Council, when the Chair is not held by the Council. d) That Connect s meetings continue to be held on a monthly basis. e) That Connect continues to rotate its meeting venues with individual partners hosting. 4

5 5) Focusing on what matters most but ensuring collaborative ownership of the business: 5.1 Connect meetings currently operate on a Part A (priority project reviews) and Part B (other strategic issues / business to be considered) basis. It is the report author s opinion that whilst the overall agendas are quite well managed, there are some weaknesses with the current approach around: a) Ensuring that the right business gets on the agenda. b) Ensuring that all Connect participants are given the opportunity of owning the agenda by contributing to it. c) Items on the agenda getting crowded out due to previous items over-running. d) Items not getting on the agenda at all. e) Building in sufficient time for dialogue and debate, in order to ensure items are given due consideration and are not rushed through. 5.2 Another factor to consider when looking at agendas is the fact that Connect does invite a number of guest speakers to its meetings who clear time in their diaries to travel to Connect meetings and present their item. With this in mind, it is only right that Connect acknowledges that commitment by ensuring that they adhere as strictly as possible to the agenda timings to prevent guest speakers from being kept waiting. 5.3 Since December 2011, 3 priority project reviews have been undertaken at each meeting. Each is given 30 minutes on the agenda with the aim of sharing overall progress to date, successes and barriers to progress. A simple template is provided to priority project leads to complete in order that these can go out in advance with the agenda papers, rather than participants being hit cold with information at the meeting itself thereby allowing little time for considered reflection. 5.4 Whilst the priority project reviews themselves appear to be going quite well, we are starting to see examples of where they are being crowded out by other business or that the peer support and challenge has not appeared to be as robust as expected. With this in mind, I would suggest that Connect might benefit from dedicating one meeting a quarter to focusing solely on the priority projects programme through a participative workshop approach (such as that adopted at the 2 nd June 2011 meeting when developing the programme) whereby through prepared flip-charts the successes and barriers to progress across all the projects can be high-lighted, and participants can indicate where they or other collaborative partners could input to accelerate progress. This approach would also free up the other two meetings in that quarter for Connect to focus on other strategic issues / business raised as agenda items by participants. Focusing on what matters most but ensuring collaborative ownership of the business report author s recommendations for Connect s consideration: a) That Connect considers dedicating one meeting per quarter to focusing solely on the Priority Projects Programme through a participative workshop approach. b) That Connect considers allocating the other two meetings in each quarter to focus on other strategic issues / business raised as agenda items by participants. c) That the Chair, Vice Chair and post-1 st April 2012 Executive Support encourages and seeks out potential agenda items from all Connect participants, thereby increasing the collective ownership of the meetings and the agendas. 5

6 6) Tracking impact: 6.1 Southampton Connect aims to add value where it can make a difference and not to create any unnecessary bureaucracy or duplication. This approach also applies to performance monitoring where it has agreed through the Southampton Connect Plan that it will only monitor 12 key city performance indicators listed below with these being reported to the Southampton Conference and made available on the website. 1) Increasing the VAT registration rates / longevity for new business start-ups. 2) Increasing the overall number of private sector jobs created. 3) Increasing the overall number of businesses in the city with staff travel plans. 4) Reducing the percentage of CO2 emissions per person in the local authority area. 5) Increasing the Key Stage 4 results including English and Maths. 6) Increasing the number of local young people securing jobs, apprenticeships or progressing to further and higher education. 7) Increasing the number of people progressing into paid work or study as a result of work experience / volunteering. 8) Reducing all offending and re-offending rates. 9) Reducing the number of people claiming Incapacity Benefit/ESA for mental health reasons. 10) Reducing the number of working age people claiming benefits. 11) Reducing the number of young people not in education, employment, or training. 12) Reducing the gap between our priority communities and the city average for: Educational attainment rates Numbers of Job Seekers Allowance claimants Crime levels Life expectancy Teenage pregnancy rates 6.2 In addition, through its Gateway to a fairer Southampton priority project Connect states that whilst all priority projects focus on improvements for the whole of the City of Southampton, each will however also have an element dedicated to improving performance and wellbeing in some of our most deprived communities, thereby reducing the gap between these communities and the city average. The Gateway to a fairer Southampton priority project will therefore support the other projects to target interventions appropriately. 6.3 Finally Southampton Connect has requested an audit (high-level mapping) to be compiled which provides an overview of the extent of community / neighbourhood based initiatives being undertaken in the city in order to ensure city partners know what s happening and can dove-tail into existing programmes and activities rather than the danger of them starting to deliver an initiative which could impact / duplicate / hinder existing projects being undertaken within communities and neighbourhoods. As reported at the 2 nd February meeting, a potential solution has been identified through the Southampton Place Book ( which is maintained by Stepacross, a community interest company launched last year. The Place Book is a web-based interactive map which currently identifies community groups and networks across the city, where they are and how you can find out more. It has the potential to address through an interactive web-based approach rather than the traditional spreadsheet approach what Southampton Connect is seeking through a map once and use many times approach. 6.4 In order to ensure that performance and impact sit central in Connect s work and thinking, I would suggest that citywide and deprived communities level impact is considered as part of the quarterly Priority Projects Programme review meetings. Tracking Impact report author s recommendations for Connect s consideration: a) That Connect considers its overall performance and impact at a citywide, deprived communities and communities of interest level as part of its dedicated quarterly Priority Projects Programme review meetings. 6

7 7) Conclusion 7.1 In conclusion, it is my opinion that Connect has made good progress in its first year and is gelling well as a citywide leadership team; ultimately this bodes well for the City of Southampton. My recommendations are logical step changes in Connect s journey that build upon the good work to date and ensure that, going forward, it creates: a) A membership that balances the competing demands of inclusiveness and effectiveness. b) A different level of ownership by Connect participants to Connect itself by recommending a non-scc Chair with a SCC Vice Chair, and seeking to ensure that all participants have the opportunity to input into the agenda planning process. c) Dedicated space to focus on the totality of the Priority Projects Programme through a quarterly participative workshop process coupled with the opportunity to review performance and impact at a citywide and deprived communities level. d) Two dedicated meetings per quarter to focus solely on other strategic issues and business as identified by Connect participants. e) It continues to create the collaborative culture in which key issues and barriers to progress can be discussed in an open and honest way. 7.2 It is recommended that any changes are agreed at the 12 th April Connect meeting with implementation being undertaken or completed in time for the Southampton Connect Conference to be held week commencing 28 th May. 8) Next Steps: 8.1 Given that there will not be sufficient time on the 1 st March agenda to fully discuss every recommendation within this paper, I would recommend that Connect participants: a) Contact Henry Pavey direct before Friday 30 th March if there are any points of clarification required. b) Lynsey Malpuss by midday Monday 2 nd April outlining whether agree or disagree with each of the recommendations contained within this paper. In addition, to submit any other proposals which require Connect s consideration. c) Lynsey Malpuss to amend recommendations in light of feedback received and draft a final paper for Connect s consideration at its 12 th April meeting. 7