Tameside Strategic Partnership Annual Conference Video 2010

Tameside Strategic Partnership Annual Conference Video 2010

Text Version

Music

It’s been a great year for Tameside. There have been challenges like the global economic recession and one of the worst winters on record, but local people have stood up to the challenge with some fantastic achievements on the things that local people have told us are most important to them – a Supportive, Prosperous, Learning, Attractive, Safe and Healthy Tameside. This is the story of the Tameside Strategic Partnership working with local people over the last year to make the borough a great place to live, work and visit.

Music

Summer 2009

In Summer 2009, the global recession presented the borough its biggest challenge for the last twenty years. The partnership of local businesses fought back with the fourteen million pound Works First scheme to support local companies.

Tony Devlin, Local Contractor
“It’s brilliant I mean especially with the recession and the times being hard at the moment for a lot of small firms it’s good for little firms keeping it within Tameside so it’s brilliant”

Residents could also Buy with Confidence after its launch to approve local traders and drive cowboys out of Tameside. 

Whilst keeping the economy active, the first ever Triathlon was held by partners in Tameside. Over one hundred people took part. Events like this will help promote healthy lifestyles and reduce health inequalities in the borough.

Colin Drake, Triathlon Competitor
“The event’s been fantastic; the scenery was absolutely magnificent when we got to the top for the bike ride you could see for miles and miles so yeah it was nice to take in”

Mark Tweedie, Head of Sports Development
“The event means a lot for Tameside, it’s been really successful. We’ve had lots of people take part from a wide mix of people, different backgrounds and it’s been a fantastic day and we really want to do it again in the future.” 

Nearly a fifth of adults are participating in sport in Tameside. This follows an extra three million pounds investment in The Ken Ward Sports Centre in Hattersley and eight million to refurbish Ashton, Copley and Hyde pools. Ashton’s Primary Care Centre also remains at the heart of the community delivering key health improvement services around smoking and obesity. Tameside’s children and young people are more active and excelling at school like never before. This year saw Tameside pupils above the national level for the first time with a massive seventy percent achieving five or more A* to C GCSEs. We know that learning is vital to a great future for Tameside.

‘Drop the Knives’ is an innovative film showcasing the skills Tameside’s young people learnt outside the classroom through the Local Youth Opportunity Fund.

Life isn’t reversible, drop the knives.

Partnership collaboration is essential to our success. The opening of the Park Café last summer was ground-breaking social enterprise transforming Hyde Park and the lives of local people with learning disabilities.

Alison Shockledge, Project Coordinator, Park Café
“Everybody in the room represents to me something that they’ve done whether it’s a small part or quite a big part and really I’d just like to say thank you for all your belief and your support in the project and for all your help as well.” (Applause)

The summer ended on a high with partnerships’ efforts supporting Tameside residents and boosting the local economy.

Music

Autumn 2009

Autumn began by winning the ‘Britain in Bloom’ Large Metropolitan Borough category for the fifth year in a row. The borough is more attractive than ever before, boasting an Environment and Heritage Award and fifteen Green Flags and Pennants for our parks and cemeteries. We are also continuing to restore Stamford Park as part of a four million pound Heritage Lottery project. 

Residents are at the heart of the partnership in trying to improve the environment for future generations. Green Champions are soon to be in all Tameside neighbourhoods.

September saw partners sign the 10:10 Challenge pledging to reduce carbon emissions by ten percent over the next year. The ‘Cycle to Work’ scheme is an excellent example of the partnership embracing this challenge.

Frances Cooke, Sustainable Commuter
“I saw an advert on my wage slip for ‘Cycle to Work’ so I went online just to find out how to apply and it was really easy. ‘Cycle to Work’ has been fantastic – you get fit, you help the environment and it’s a really like safe and easy way to cycle to work and I’d recommend it to anyone.”

Music

Winter 2009

Britain experienced one of the coldest winters on record in 2009. The snow was heavy and prolonged making service delivery difficult and leaving vulnerable residents in need of greater support.

Sue, Homecare Worker
“It is people that you’re dealing with and you don’t want to let anybody down and all the people that do use this service need it for various reasons. You do want to get to these people and make sure that they are okay because a lot of them are on their own – they’ve no family, no neighbours, so at least you’re just checking on them and making sure that yes they’re okay”.

Florence, Service User
“Well I couldn’t do anything. You see I’ve only got this arm couldn’t do anything with it. I don’t know what I’d do.”

“You haven’t got any of the, have you got any of the little you know the handouts”.

Crime is still a problem for all of Greater Manchester but partnership operations Stand and Snowstorm had a great impact on crime levels with big drops in serious violent crime and acquisitive crime.

PC Tony Lawton, Greater Manchester Police
“Since Operation Stand started, Officers with the Patrollers, Fire Brigade, the Neighbourhood Officers and Special Constables that are going around the town centre doing the meet and greets and making sure that people don’t get unlicensed taxis, making sure that people go home in groups; they know where they’re going, they know where they’re getting picked up from, so all in all it’s improving the night-time economy and the feedback they’re getting back from visitors in the town centre has been excellent. One of the improvements has been there is CCTV. I’d say since all those improvements have been put in place it’s made a big difference.”

Building Schools for the Future funding is helping to transform our high schools as part of our remodelling and rebuilding programme. The programme was one of the first to include academies and a voluntary aided school, with academy sponsors New Charter and Tameside College working closely with the Council to develop innovative new buildings. 

Personalisation and choice is at the core of our partnership work with adults.

Andrew – Tenant, Beaumont Place
“He comes and helps me to clean my flat and do little jobs and then Karen she comes and she takes me shopping and does my budgeting, and helps me to sort things out.”

The winter came to an end with Tameside Strategic Partnership being awarded a Green Flag through the National Comprehensive Area Assessment process. Tameside’s Green Flag is for getting local people involved. It’s a great achievement where our efforts to engage locals in how to provide the best services were flagged as National Best Practice.

Audrey Ward, Tameside Resident
“I found on the Internet all about Tameside and to my absolute amazement I saw that we had got a Green Flag. Tameside had worked so hard, the fact that we have a recognition of what has been done has got to make it better for people because that in itself gives people more confidence to look for ways to improve things. People really need to be looked at as people with opinions and the only way to get that is to ask them for their opinions and the work now that all these groups like T3SC and RIQ, Tameside Strategic Partnership are bringing it all back, getting people to work together and the community is much, much stronger than it used to be.“

Music

Spring 2010

The start of Spring saw the launch of Ashton’s Metrolink extension. The hard work of the Partnership has been long coming in securing this project confirmed by our new Government. The Metrolink is set to be complete in 2013 bringing greater prosperity to Tameside. 

Tameside was awarded a local innovation award for building economic resilience. The improvement and development agencies singled out Tameside for helping the local community, safeguarding local jobs and supporting businesses through the recession.

“Talk about investments, secondary schools three hundred million invested, primary schools sixty-five million invested and on top of that, local firms have been given five point five million to help build the schools. You can’t ask better than that can you?”

Although now discontinued nationally, the Partnership has successfully brought hundreds of new employment opportunities to the borough for out of work eighteen to twenty-four year olds through the Future Jobs Fund.

John Edwards, Future Jobs Fund Participant
“I first found out about the Future Jobs Fund watching telly and it was an interview with Gordon Brown. Basically just talking about getting more eighteen to twenty-four year olds back into work and at the time I was on the dole and it was just something I mentioned to my adviser whilst at the Job Centre. The experience I’ve gathered over the six months will stand me in great stead; I’ll be able to improve my CV. I was laid off when I was halfway through my qualification so I was quite disappointed really never to get it finished and this whole initiative opportunity has just given me a chance of getting back doing what I want to do so I’m very thankful really.”

The Partnership has also hosted a successful Apprentice Fair with over nine hundred people attending as we strive to get more young people in employment, education or training.

Beccy Tierney, Apprentice
“I do up to five shifts a week in a care home. I’m doing a day a week in college. It has helped and it’s been a big eye opener into what I want to do and it’s given me the experience I need to go onto like higher placements.”

Involving local people is at the heart of the Partnership and June’s Culture to Build cohesion participatory budgeting event successfully gave fifty thousand pounds to local community projects.

Andrea Puttnam, Event Participator
“It will go towards the Chinese New Year celebrations and we’d have participatory workshops involving local artists, one being Michael here from Northern Tigers with a professional lion.”

Shahida Ditta, Event Participant
“Today just shows me that there are lots of people within the community that want to make this place a better place.”

Ammar Ali, Event Participant
“I think it’s a fantastic day. Obviously we will do the event, the grand event, inviting all communities to come together you know from all backgrounds from across Tameside.”

The collaborative work to reduce re-offending through integrated offender management highlights the strong partnership working in the borough.

Enda Ross, IOM Co-ordinator
“Integrated Offender Management in Tameside is a real partnership way of working. The achievements for Integrated Offender Management during the last twelve months has we will have hit a thirty-seven point one reduction in re-offending and alongside that what we’ve been able to do is equate that to savings of six hundred and thirty-eight hundred thousand pounds. Quite frankly, Integrated Offender Management couldn’t have existed without partnerships having the will, being prepared to put the resources in and to stick with it you know. This Partnership has been extremely brave and it couldn’t work without partners working together.”

Music

It’s been a great year in Tameside and we look forward to making the next year even better.