To approve the Talk Community strategic approach and its implementation, including the development and delivery of a comprehensive Talk Community programme and strategy.

The cabinet member health and adult wellbeing introduced the report and highlighted the key points:

·         Talk community was becoming increasingly integral to the council’s business and developing its identity;

·         It was recognised as a new way of working in partnership with communities and would be a launch pad for future partnerships;

·         The programme provided central coordination during the emergency phase of Covid and during the winter floods;

·         It was an all-ages approach which built on the strengths based model already in place in adults and communities.

The assistant director talk community programme explained that:

·         The approach had been evolving over the previous 12 to 18 months and had started to become an established way of working with communities;

·         It supported the council’s prevention agenda to manage demands for health and social care services;

·         The appendix to the report gave an overview of where talk community hubs were and where they were looking to be established,;

·         Partners in the health system and communities had endorsed the approach.

In discussion of the report and proposed approach cabinet members noted that:

·         The talk community business element had started earlier in the year and focussed on how businesses could support their employees and signposting to services;

·         There were many directions this approach could take, building on the volunteer networks that were active during the coronavirus epidemic and the flooding in the winter;

·         The joint strategic needs assessment and data from the research team should be used to help identify priority areas and scrutiny committees were encouraged to use the data to lead policy shaping;

·         The council’s data was shared with communities as part of partnership working but the approach also made use of intelligence from within communities;

·         It was important to set out a timeline of key deliverables moving forward;

·         The approach synchronised well with action to strengthen families and reduce the need for intervention including children being taken into care.

Group leaders and representatives were invited to give the views and queries of their respective groups. The concept was welcomed and it was noted that:

·         Further work was needed to communicate the approach to more communities, this would be part of the engagement plan;

·         The push to make use of existing assets as part of the strategic approach was welcomed;

·         the use of wider networks of care could be explored including intergenerational activities, this would create a wider economy of care where many more organisations and individuals were involved in providing care;

·         hubs already in place were well received and providing a useful service.

The chairperson of the adults and wellbeing scrutiny committee explained that overall the committee were very positive about the strategy and welcomed the application of a strengths based approach. The scrutiny committee had noted that the approach was flexible, consolidated existing offers and encouraged communities to support one another.

It was agreed that:

(a)          the Talk Community strategic approach and its implementation be approved and;

(b)          authority be delegated to the director for adults and communities to take all operational decisions necessary to ensure adoption and implementation of the proposed Talk Community programme and plan, within available revenue and capital resources, subject to further governance when required.