The Maryport Neighbourhood Partnership - Past, Present and Future

Published at 09:55, Friday, 27 June 2008

Maryport Neighbourhood Partnership was formally established in December 2006 by Allerdale Borough Council using Neighbourhood Renewal Funding from the Government.

The partnership brought together the four parishes of Broughton Moor, Crosscanonby, Dearham, and Maryport Town Council along with Flimby. The Maryport area also spanned five Allerdale wards and three county council wards. The partnership represented members of the neighbourhood communities and service providers in the area.

The partnership reflected the commissioning and delivery needs of the West Cumbria Strategic Partnership (WCSP) - the Local Strategic Partnership (LSP) for west Cumbria.

The partnership also employed a partnership manager, through Allerdale Borough Council, which provided dedicated officer support for the partnership, and who formally integrated the partnership with the WCSP.

The partnership had a projects budget through which it funded initiatives which helped achieve neighbourhood renewal targets. The following projects were funded as result:

• Maryport Local Police Team; one additional mosquito purchased to reduce anti-social behaviour, and exploring the potential to run confidence and personal awareness training for young girls in Maryport with Netherhall School

• Maryport Youth Work Providers; to develop a young people’s centre

• The Rising Sun Trust; to develop a drug and alcohol support drop-in

• Fit 4 Life; to provide additional resources for people on incapacity benefit to get fitness training, and assist Fit 4 Life to become contract-ready to tender for Condition Management Programme

• Flimby Community Association; to support the development of Flimby green gym and assist the Community Association to become contract-ready to tender for Condition Management Programme

• Maryport Health Services; Additional smoking cessation sessions to be targeted at patients suffering from diabetes, high blood pressure, asthma and heart disease).

• Netherhall School; Enterprise Team

• Netherhall School; Low Intensity Fitness Programme

In December 2007 the partnership re-focused itself to take on a Neighbourhood Management approach in tackling the issues facing Maryport and continuing neighbourhood renewal.

This meant it would be working directly with service providers to ensure the right services were being delivered locally and at the level required.

The new approach would enable the Partnership to influence and inform the Local Area Agreement between Cumbria County Council, Allerdale Borough Council and central government to ensure neighbourhood renewal priorities in Maryport were addressed.

A forward strategy for the partnership was produced and agreed in March 2008 with new formal governance structures which replaced the original two groups. The strategy offered guidance on how the partnership would continue and survive beyond March 2008 – which marked the end of the original neighbourhood renewal programme and funding.

The partnership faced a challenge in identifying and securing funding for its forward strategy and new neighbourhood management approach beyond this date. The challenge was met and while there is still a gap in funding, enough money has been secured to continue its work for the short term, with the help of Allerdale Borough Council.

Home Group and Cumbria County Council also stepped in to offer financial support to the partnership. It is also waiting to hear whether further money will come from public health and the police, in order to secure the partnership for another year.

Maryport Neighbourhood Partnership has become a bit of a test bed for other neighbourhood management initiatives whose central government funding comes to an end in March 2010 and also for other partnerships wanting to take on a neighbourhood management approach in Allerdale.

The partnership as it currently stands has parish council area representation and political ward representation through district and county councillors. It has a whole host of service provider agencies (explain what service provider agencies are and give examples) who sit along side the community and councillors. Together they identify issues and set priority outcomes for Maryport; monitoring performance against those outcomes using a performance framework from central government.

There are also sub-groups which are based around each agreed priority outcome area. These identify action on the ground to achieve the priority outcomes and report progress to the main partnership. The sub-groups provide an opportunity for members of the wider community to get involved as well as bringing in expertise on a specific issue.

The partnership is constitutionally-based with financial being through Allerdale Borough Council. -(this sentence doesn’t make sense and I can’t decipher it) To date, the partnership has held its inaugural meeting; the sub-groups have been set up and have had their first meetings.

Unique to the partnership is the pairing of the chairs and vice chairs. All the chair positions for the partnership and the sub-groups are occupied by community members and the vice-chairs by elected councillors.

This adds strength to the partnership in a major way by ensuring individuals’ skills are shared; increasing the influence of the partnership. Voting is restricted to community representatives and elected Council members. Representatives from the service providers do not have a vote and act like the non-voting executive directors of, for example, the board of a primary care trust.

As such, the partnership is still very new and fresh and will take time to establish and bring influence to bear on shaping how services are delivered locally – ultimately co-ordinating these services to bring about a lasting change for the better.

If the current working arrangements prove successful it could lead to the partnership being financed as part of the mainstream funding mechanisms of both Allerdale borough and Cumbria county councils, perhaps with additional support from service provider agencies.

However, whatever the future holds, the partnership aims to work with both the borough and county councils in helping them to fulfil their duty to involve local communities in decision making and “shaping” their areas, and helping them and other service providers to better deliver services.