‘Halton Together Panel’

 

Themed meeting – Wealth & Equality

 

Tuesday 31st August 2004

At Sefton House, Runcorn

 

Present

Brian Miller – Halton Crossroads, Chris Walsh – Halton Amputee Self Help (HASH)  Pauline Ruth – Halton Childrens Fund, Sharon Petersen – Halton Happy Hearts, John Frodsham – North West Cheshire Scout Council, Mike Fry – HAFS,

 

In Attendance

K Parkes – HVA,

 

Apologies

A Bowen – North West Division Girlguiding, Barbara Haley – Halton Open

 

This was the first of the sub group themed meetings and was called to look at the general format of the group.

 

·               Name – it was discussed that calling the group Wealth & Equality is already leading to confusion.  Members were asked to consider suitable names to tie into the wealth & equality theme

·               Frequency of meetings – it was agreed that the meetings should be scheduled to feed into the SSP meetings.  The partnership meets every two months so it was decided that the themed group should meet at least one month before this date to enable members to ask for items to be included on the agenda and feed any issues into the chair/co-ordinator.  The next SSP meetings are 1.9.04 and 23.11.04.  Feedback from the partnership will be given at the next themed meeting.  Next meeting was set for 28th October at 5pm at HVA.

·               Timing of meetings – due to unavailability of members to attend meetings in the day it was agreed that timing should be varied to accommodate all members. 

·               Aims and objectives were briefly agreed as:

o       Mechanism to feed information into the partnership

o       Mechanism to receive feedback to disseminate to the borough

o       Means of providing the partnership with a comprehensive listing of groups able to commission pieces of work

o       Means of influencing the priorities to target for NRF

 

It was agreed that the group will adopt full terms of reference but that more members would need to have an input to this document.

 

The objectives of the partnership were outlined as:

·               Helping to eliminate child poverty

·               Enhancing the quality of life of those who are less able to help themselves

·               Helping residents to build confident and successful communities

·               Improving the quality of life of older people in a community setting

 

It was noted that disability is not listed in this or any one of the other partnership priorities.  It was agreed that this is a cross cutting theme and the SSP chairs meet regularly and keeping this level of communication will prevent disability issues from slipping through the net.  Registration of disabled children has already begun and this could be widened to provide a comprehensive database.

 

The funding currently in place was allocated by the LSP.  The new round of funding is available from April 05 and no decisions have yet been made about this allocation so it is an ideal time to become more involved in the process and influence change.

 

The agenda for the partnership meeting on 1.9.04 was summarized as follows

·               Update on LSP by Karen Marcroft

·               Update on CEN by Andy Guile

·               Information sharing (what forums/meetings members attend)

·               Monitoring report

·               Coordinators report

·               Underspend – some projects have been identified which will mean that these can be taken up rather than the money going back into the central pot

 

At a recent LSP away day each group were given the task of producing an Action Plan by October which would include stated priorities.  The W&E SSP must include the following

 

·               How to better partnership working

·               Short term impact on peoples lives

·               Better access for and engagement of local people

 

Date/time next meeting:   28th October at 5pm at HVA