Inspection of Community Learning and Development In
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Inspection of Community Learning and Development in Aberdeenshire Council 27 November 2017 Contents 1. Context .................................................................................................................................. 1 2. How good is the strategic leadership of community learning and development? ................... 1 3. How good is the learning and development in this community? ............................................ 2 4. What happens at the end of the inspection? .......................................................................... 4 1. Context Community learning and development (CLD) partners within Aberdeenshire Council and the area of Peterhead and Mintlaw were inspected by Education Scotland during October 2017. During the visit Education Scotland staff talked to children, young people, adults and community organisations. We worked closely with local CLD managers, CLD providers, partners, paid staff and volunteers. We wanted to find out the quality of the strategic leadership of CLD and the quality of CLD provision in the area. We also looked at how well paid staff and volunteers are developing their own practices and building capacity. We looked at how partners are contributing to current and evolving national policy objectives such as closing the poverty-related attainment gap; prevention; reducing social isolation; tackling health inequalities; and empowering communities. 2. How good is the strategic leadership of community learning and development? Committed skilled leaders at strategic area and community level are driving forward change in Aberdeenshire and in the Peterhead and Mintlaw area. At both strategic and local level partners, including local volunteers, have a ‘can do’ approach which results in new services and learning opportunities being developed. Staff and volunteers are ambitious for the communities they serve and positive about working with others to achieve results. Informal and formal networks underpin local partnership working. Partners have a shared sense of purpose around the three Local Outcome Improvement Plan priorities of tackling child poverty, health inequalities relating to alcohol and building connected and cohesive communities. The Buchan Welfare and Employability group brings together a range of partners to jointly identify and plan responses to changing welfare and employment issues. They developed the new Compass Point service, a one stop shop in Peterhead, based on learning from Fraserburgh to better meet needs in the Peterhead area. Local people now have better access to employability, financial inclusion, benefits and income maximisation advice and signposting to other opportunities. Senior leaders within both Aberdeenshire Council and Community Planning Partnership understand and value the role the CLD service and CLD partners play in progressing key national and local priorities. As a result, in 2017/18 an additional council budget was agreed to extend work with young people. Strong cross-sector working within Education and Children’s Services (ECS) underpins the delivery of high quality opportunities for children and young people. CLD staff are actively engaged in raising attainment alongside school colleagues. Increasing decentralisation and the development of locality based governance structures are beginning to support a more coordinated approach to taking forward priorities locally. However, these are not yet fully embedded and the partnership and network landscape remains unclear to some stakeholders. There is now a need to improve the clarity of the role and purpose of each partnership and network in relationship to each other and to strategic priorities. There is also scope to review the membership of partnership groups to ensure all key stakeholders, including community and faith groups, are able to contribute. There is a strong emphasis on planning for improvement across partners. The council has made good use of the skills and knowledge of Associate Assessors to embed and improve self-evaluation practice at council, team and establishment level. The CLD service is outward looking and has well established, positive links with partners across the North East of Scotland 1 | CLD in Aberdeenshire Council which increase professional learning opportunities. Training such as Tapestry courses and self-evaluation framework sessions with neighbouring authorities increase staff reflection and ability to understand the impact of their work. Good use is made of opportunities such as secondments and peer evaluation to increase CLD officer’s professional development. High quality workforce development opportunities increase the capacity of staff and volunteers across the Buchan area. Partners including Aberdeenshire Voluntary Action and Buchan Development Partnership (BDP) are effective in supporting many third sector and community organisations to access relevant training. There is scope to increase the coordination of training and other workforce development opportunities to enable all practitioners to benefit. 3. How good is the learning and development in this community? Across the Mintlaw and Peterhead communities there is a rich and high quality learning offer which attracts large numbers of participants. Twice weekly Bookbug sessions in Peterhead library regularly attract 40-60 participants. The Megakidz Friday evening children’s club run by Apex Church has an average weekly attendance of 150. Substantial numbers of local people volunteer. This includes young people such as the ten young volunteers who support other young people to enjoy and learn from the Modo Circus programme. Partners are increasingly effective in sharing data to inform their work around key priorities and to target provision. For example, ECS now share data with Active Schools to increase the participation of young people with additional support needs. There is scope to build on such practice to increase the systematic sharing of key performance data across partners. Improving the joint identification, gathering and analysis of key intelligence would enable partners to more efficiently assess need and measure progress. Across the area most CLD service performance trends are improving. Adult learning trends show a consistent increase in both the number of activities and of registered learners from 2014/15 to 2016/17 across the Peterhead and Mintlaw network areas. The number of learners undertaking English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) activities including classes and the new conversation café in the Peterhead network area increased substantially over the last two years. CLD service programmes have clear and demanding targets such as 90% of learners achieving at least one of their intended learning goals. These are usually achieved. Youth work activities run by the CLD service show an upwards trend since 2014/15 in the number of young people achieving their planned outcomes. Mintlaw and Peterhead are very vibrant communities. Proactive community and faith organisations contribute significantly to the strong sense of place alongside third sector organisations and public services. Volunteers of all ages are ambitious for their communities and gain satisfaction from improving them. Community groups and volunteers deliver valued social and learning opportunities which increase the quality of life in the area. Volunteers run services which provide effective support to those with addiction issues. A volunteer run Recovery Café and new Family Recovery Café increase the wellbeing and inclusion of those affected by addiction issues. The volunteers receive appropriate support from partners including relevant training such as the Recovery College and Recovery Coaching programmes. Faith groups play a significant role in delivery of services which meet local needs. Fifteen volunteers from the local Baptist Church run a breakfast club every school day morning in a Peterhead primary school. This supports the children’s readiness and capacity to learn as well as providing a safe early morning venue. The weekly Congi Café run at Peterhead 2 | CLD in Aberdeenshire Council Congregational Church by volunteers enables up to 100 local people, including older adults, to experience a social lunch every week. For many this is a key lifeline to their community and for some it helps address food poverty issues. Well trained and supported volunteers are a key part of the delivery of ESOL and Literacies activities in the area. They support literacies and ESOL learners effectively to achieve and progress. Community organisations led by highly skilled volunteers are an important part of the local economic and social infrastructure. The BDP actively assists local people to progress social, economic and environmental community developments in the Buchan area. They support over 180 community groups in their role as a rural community anchor organisation. Mintlaw and Central Buchan Initiative provides a wide range of leisure and fitness activities in response to local need and have an average of 6,000 uses per month. The Buchanhaven Boatshed Project, run by volunteers, has created a multi-use space improving the harbour area and increasing accommodation for learning activities. Partners are aware of the need to strengthen and embed the voice of communities in strategic and local decision making. There is also scope to increase opportunities for all stakeholders to share practice to improve outcomes. Dialogue with communities through Participatory Budgeting (PB) is one of the ways they are addressing