Wrthi'n llwytho
Does dim crynodeb o'r cyfarfod hwn eto. Caiff crynodebau eu hysgrifennu pan fydd y cyngor yn cyhoeddi'r cofnodion, sef ei gofnod swyddogol o'r hyn a benderfynodd cyfarfod. Maen nhw fel arfer yn ymddangos ychydig wythnosau ar ôl y cyfarfod.
1.1 Chair welcomed Members and Officers to the meeting. 1.2 Apologies were received from Councillors Liam Cowles, Karl Gauden, Elizabeth Haynes, Norma Parrish & Caroline Price
2.1 There were no declarations.
3.1 The minutes of the meeting held on 20 November 2024 were confirmed as an accurate record.
4.1 The TLS explained that there was an outstanding action, but that information had now been received and that this would be circulated following the meeting. Members noted the action sheet.
5 Children and Young People’s Participation Strategy 2025-2027 5.1 The YFR thanked the Committee for allowing them the opportunity to attend & the Chair thanked the YFR for allowing himself and the TLS to attend a Youth Forum meeting to discuss Scrutiny. The Chair then asked the HoCE&CC & EM to introduce the report. 5.2 Members questioned and officers responses were as follows: • C&YPE&PO – Providing feedback to the Youth Forum was vital. The usual process was that internal and external organisations that had engaged with the Youth Forum, would consult as a one-off and then there would be no further contact. The Strategy put in place training that would help improve consultation and encouraged feedback to be given to the Youth Forum following consultation. HoCE&CC – The Chief Executive had prioritised including the Youth voice in decision-making and following the Council Takeover Day points had been raised by the young people who attended and they would return in January 2025 to ensure actions that had been raised had been progressed or completed. • C&YPE&PO – Following the Strategy being adopted a training program would be developed to help improve their ability to engage and communicate with young people. We had also re-established the Youth Alliance, which consisted of all of the forums for young people from across the Borough, giving another opportunity for the Council to engage with young people. It was also reiterated that members of the Youth Forum were made up of members of the School Councils and acts as a point of contact to the Borough Council for young people. YFR – We had recently set-up a page on social media which would enable young people to contact the Youth Forum directly and allow issues to be raised on their behalf. • YFR – Future meetings of the Youth Forum would be recorded and then posted to our social media page and we also reported back discussions at the meetings to our peers in school, acting as a link between schools and the Council. • HoCE&CC – Not only was there a standing agenda item for full Council meetings for public question time, we publicised all Scrutiny meetings on the Councils social media pages and would look to also get the Youth Forum to publicise these meetings on their social media page, to increase our reach to young people. • YFR – The C&YPE&PO acted well as a link between the Forum and the Council and this had led to issues raised being responded to by the relevant officer responsible. Overall the Youth Forum were happy with the Strategy and didn’t feel any amendments were needed. HoCE&CC – A lot of issues had been raised through the C&YPE&PO by the Youth Forum and this had worked well in getting issues reported and resolved. • C&YPE&PO – Following the success of the Youth Forum, work on a Junior Youth Forum had started, bringing together representatives from all Primary Schools across the Borough, with this being trialled in January 2025 and allow us to engage with younger children. • C&YPE&PO – Feedback received by the Council from the Youth Forum had enabled us to get different perspectives on issues such as mental health and wellbeing and feed these into the decision-making process. TLS – Alongside the Chair we had attended a Youth Forum meeting where we had discussed Scrutiny with suggestions for items to be scrutinised, some of which had been selected for the Scrutiny Cycle such as ALN, homelessness and recycling. HoCE&CC – It was vital to gather young peoples views and opinions on topics that affected them or would affect them in the future. • C&YPE&PO – The Youth Forum members consisted of representatives from all schools across the Borough to ensure both the North and South areas were represented. SD-C&FS – It was more important that members had a variety of different experiences to draw from as opposed to only being split geographically, to broaden the representation of the Forum. • HoCE&CC – Following the adoption of the Strategy, training would be provided to all Council directorates to ensure it was embedded across the entire Council. • YFR – Young Carers had raised issues to Youth Forum members which had then been discussed at meetings, they had also been encouraged to attend Youth Alliance meetings where they could also discuss their issues. • The Chair assured the YFR that feedback from this meeting would be reported to the YF commenting that these meetings are recorded and the committee would make recommendations with YFR contributions. Once responses to the recommendations were received they would be shared with the Youth Forum. It was also suggested that scrutiny chairs could attend the Youth Forum where invited and appropriate. • HoCE&CC – Once the Strategy has been adopted, communications would be sent out publicising this and these can also be publicised by the Youth Forum through their social media channels. • EM – Thanked the YFR’s for their participation in the meeting, it was important that young peoples voices were considered during decision-making and the Strategy supported this. 5.3 The Chair thanked the Officers and the EM for their participation, and they then left the meeting. The TLS, SO, AD&MSTL and TD&MSO remained for the recommendations. 5.4 Recommendations On completion of their scrutiny activity, the Committee concluded by offering the following recommendations and comments for consideration: - Recommendation 1:- The committee recommended a dedicated contact be available for children and young people as a direct source of access into the Council. Ideally any issues raised should also be referred to the Youth Council for information (if not raised through them) Recommendation 2:- Training for service area representatives, members and partner agencies should be a priority to raise awareness of the objectives of the Children & Young People’s Strategy 2025-27 and to educate stakeholders in how to embed it into their decision-making processes. Recommendation 3:- Where appropriate, and considerate of school timetables, children and young people should be invited to play a more prominent role in scrutiny meetings and activity. This should include advising the Youth Forum of the offer from the Chairs of Scrutiny Committees, to attend forum meetings on an invitation basis where the forum members would welcome their input, as well as information on the process for raising public questions Recommendation 4:- Youth Alliance membership should be reviewed regularly to ensure full coverage and representation, also considering voluntary organisation/ group inclusion. Recommendation 5:- Engagement can be one sided with council teams approaching young people to ask them about specific issues, with little opportunity for young people to proactively tell services about the issues that are important to them. Also, where young people have been consulted, they are not kept updated about how their views have been used. It was recommended that the key focus and objective of the strategy be ensuring two-way feedback in both the aforementioned aspects, making use of existing contact points and Forum social media Additional Comments & Observations from the Committee: The Cross Cutting Resources & Corporate Business O&S Committee commended the Children & Young People’s Participation Strategy 2025-27 and welcomed the objectives highlighting the importance of improving young people’s participation in Council decision making processes. Members would welcome the commitment of developing a forum for primary aged children and would welcome an update in the coming months on its development.
6.1 The next meeting will be held on 28, January 2025 6.2 The meeting ended at 3.10pm.
Rhaid i gynghorwyr ddweud pan fydd ganddyn nhw gysylltiad personol â rhywbeth sy'n cael ei drafod, fel swydd, eiddo neu aelod o'r teulu. Mae buddiant sy'n rhagfarnu yn ddigon cryf i'r cynghorydd adael yr ystafell fel arfer a pheidio â chymryd rhan.
Caiff datganiadau eu darllen o'r cofnodion unwaith y byddan nhw wedi'u cyhoeddi.
Yn rhestru cynghorwyr presennol y cyngor yn unig. Nid yw aelodau cyfetholedig, swyddogion a chyn-gynghorwyr yn cael eu dangos.