A progress report providing the Committee with an update on the delivery of the Early Intervention Strategy.

Further to Minute 43 of the meeting held on 31 January 2018, the Director of Children’s Services, Brighter Futures for Children, submitted a report providing the Committee with a progress report on the Delivery of the Early Intervention Strategy.

The report explained that in September 2018 a partnership event had been held and over 50 partner representatives had attended.  The partners had agreed that a new model for delivery was required and a new approach would support a whole system of change to ‘early intervention’ and would provide the necessary governance to deliver the key outcomes.  At the heart of the model was a strategic commitment to build community resilience and capacity of the voluntary and community sector.  A number of cross-partner working groups had been established to bring coordination and shared accountability for delivery and a series of delivery groups had held initial meetings between October 2018 and January 2019; a summary of activity was set out in a table in the report.

The report stated that collective agreement had been reached that new governance arrangements to monitor delivery and impact of the Strategy would be required.  An inaugural meeting of the Strategic Partnership Board had been arranged for 5 February 2019 and the Board would be chaired by an independent community representative.  The Board would ask that strategic partners formally agreed a set of principles which would underline the way they would commit to the new partnership.  The Board would adopt the Scanning, Analysis, Response and Evaluation (SARA Problem Solving Model) as the Partnership approach to project management and would report, via the Strategic Partnership Leads, into existing governance arrangements including Adult Social Care, Children’s Services and Education Committee, the Children’s Services Improvement Board and the Health and Wellbeing Board.

Resolved –    That the report be noted.