What is Neighbourhood Engagement?
Neighbourhood Engagement is part of Gateshead's long-term plan to ensure local services meet local needs and expectations and are accountable to local people by:
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bringing service providers together with each other and with local people
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changing or realigning local services as appropriate
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creating structures to shape and fund future service delivery
We want to to improve the quality of people's lives, by providing communities with someone they can turn to who has responsibility for dealing with problems at the neighbourhood level; committing service providers to redesign the way services are delivered and ensure that service providers are held to account by the local community for the quality of services they provide.
A new way of working providing closer links to local people
Gateshead Council already has a top four-star rating for the services we provide to local people. But we don't want to stop there.
We want to work more closely with neighbourhoods, so that local people and communities have more influence over the services they receive - and more opportunities to tell us what they want.
So in May 2007 we adopted a new way of working that will improve the way we listen and act when it comes to the needs of local people. We can break down our new approach into three key areas:
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We will strengthen the role of ward councillors, who will be clearly recognised as champions for their local community
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We have set up an Area Forum in each of the five areas of the borough – Central, East, Inner West, South and West. The Forums have brought together the Council, the Health Service, the Police, the Fire Service, the Gateshead Housing Company, the voluntary sector, Nexus and other local organisations to co-ordinate and monitor local services, solve problems and help local people to have a voice. Local people can attend these meetings (information on meetings can be found by using the links on the left)
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We have reorganised our Cabinet so that each of the five areas has a Cabinet member with direct responsibility for what happens in the area. This will give local communities a direct link into the Cabinet, where council policy is developed and many decisions are made.
Will all this make a difference? We think it will. For example the council has recently introduced small multi-skilled teams who provide a range of local services around people's homes, like street cleansing, ground maintenance and removing graffiti. They work flexibly in response to local people's needs, and have proved very popular.
We want to deliver more of our services in this way and give local people more chance to tell us what kind of services they want.
Of course, some services, like schools, have to be planned across the whole borough so that we can use resources wisely and maintain standards. But these are still things on which local people can have a say, like community use of school buildings.
We believe this is a really important development for you and for the council. We will report back to let you know how the new Area Forums are doing.