Agenda item

Gloucester Community Building Collective

To receive the Cabinet Member for Communities & Neighbourhoods’ report which provides an update on the work of Gloucester Community Building Collective (GCBC) and further outlines its business and  strategic proposals.

Minutes:

17.1       Councillor Watkins, the Cabinet Member for Communities & Neighbourhoods, introduced the report and highlighted key elements. She stated that the aim of the report was for Members to note the great work the CIC had done throughout the pandemic and for Members to look at the five year business plan - required as part of an agreement between the company and the Council. Councillor Watkins added that she and the Corporate Director attended quarterly meetings of the CIC. She said that another purpose of the report was to approve changes to the Board and to endorse the reduction of the number of appointed City Council Directors at the company to allow it to be independent moving forward.

 

 

17.2       Councillor Stephens welcomed the report. He expressed disappointment that the Business Plan in full was not publicly available and would require Members to discuss it in a private session. He stated that the directors appointed were excellent choices. Councillor Stephens concluded by stating that he wished to raise a point in relation to the Key Performance Indicators.

 

 

17.3       The Corporate Director & Monitoring Officer replied by stating that he would look at a way of potentially restructuring the report so more of it could be publicly available when it went before Cabinet. He said that he saw no reason why the Key Performance Indicators could not be publicly released.

 

         

17.4       Councillor Stephens stated that he believed that the current Key Performance Indicators were not sufficient and that he wished for more quantitative targets.

 

 

17.5       Councillor Watkins welcomed Councillor Stephens comments about it being an excellent report. In relation to concerns raised by Councillor Stephens regarding Key Performance Indicators, Councillor Watkins said that it could be difficult, when it came to doing asset-based community work, to formulate statistics and KPIs which would satisfy everyone who prefers to have numerical data. She stated that there was work being undertaken to improve the monitoring and performance of the work, particularly around ripple effect mapping.

 

17.6       The Executive Director of Gloucester Community Building Collective added to Councillor Watkins reply to Councillor Stephens by stating that they had been working with the University of Bristol on ripple effect mapping which was relevant for asset-based community development work. He stated that they would continue to improve their KPIs. He stated that the meeting about effective ripple effect mapping meeting with the University would happen that same week and that they would produce a report by the end of the year on the impact of it.

 

 

17.7       Councillor Wilson asked what rationale was behind the recommendation to reduce the number of Gloucester City Council non-executive directors from two to one, particularly considering the previous issues the Council had had with the management of outside bodies.

 

 

17.8       Councillor Watkins replied that it was never the intention that the Council would remain in charge of the company and that the plan was always for it to become independent. She added that enough scrutiny had been provided to ensure that issues that had arisen from previous governance of outside bodies did not happen again.

 

 

17.9       Councillor Hilton stated that he was surprised that more of the Business Plan was not made publicly available. He wanted clarification as to whether the Gloucester Lottery Central fund should be used to fund the Gloucester Community Building Collective or whether the funding should come from elsewhere.

 

 

 

17.10    Councillor Watkins replied by stating that the Gloucester Community Building Collective was not a Council service. Regarding the lottery funding, she stated that the Council had chosen to use the lottery fund in various ways over previous years. She stated that funding the Gloucester Community Building Collective through the Central Lottery Fund would be beneficial because the Gloucester Community Building Collective was one of the few organisations that covered the entire city. She stated that the Council would still be assisting other community-based projects. 

 

 

17.11    Councillor Hilton stated that the work was not city wide and that it was for 10 wards. He asked for clarification as to how it would assist all wards in the City.

 

 

17.12    Councillor Watkins replied by stating that they would assist in every area of the City.

 

 

 

17.13    The Executive Director added that the goal of the organisation was to work in every part of the City. He said that it could be the case that they may have to taper out some of the work in some wards to assist with projects in other wards. He stated that they were also mindful of partner organisations in the City and needed to ensure that they were not duplicating work from partner organisations.

 

 

17.14    Councillor Coole proposed a vote to move into private session to discuss the exempt appendices within the item. There were no objections.

 

 

 

17.15    RESOLVED that the press and public be excluded from the meeting during the following item of business on the grounds that it is likely in view of the nature of the proceedings that if members of the press and public were present during consideration of this item there would be disclosure to them of exempt information as defined in paragraph(s) 3 of Part 1 of Schedule 12A of the Local Government Act 1972.

 

 

17.16    RESOLVED that the Overview and Scrutiny Committee NOTE the report subject to the undertakings to restructure elements of the report to provide for greater public access provided by the Cabinet Member as above..

 

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