Supporting the homeless Today (1 December) the first day of winter, is very significant in terms of our commitment to caring for rough sleepers. It’s the date when we start implementing the Cold Weather Protocol and work with charities and partners across Greater Manchester to provide interventions for those living on the streets. Until the start of April we’ll be reviewing the weather on a daily basis. Whenever the night temperature for Tameside is forecast to fall to zero or below, the Protocol will come into force. Tameside Housing Advice will place a notice on the front page of its website by 11am and we’ll be joining with partners to provide additional emergency overnight accommodation. Anyone needing such accommodation must contact Tameside Housing Advice and its offices are at 119-125 Old Street, Ashton. They’re open Monday to Thursday (9am to 3pm) and Fridays (10am to 3pm). Outside these hours referrals under the Protocol can be made by calling 0161 331 2700/2888. The Protocol comes alongside the recent announcement of Greater Manchester’s commitment to support our vulnerable, rough sleepers into accommodation. I am pleased that our Pension Fund, which is always pushing the frontiers in making local investment has played a key role in investing in the £1.8 million social impact scheme. This sees the newly formed Greater Manchester Homes Partnership providing the support needed to help rough sleepers take a tenancy in one of 270 homes to be made available by 15 Greater Manchester housing providers and two private rented- sector partners. Importantly, charities such as Shelter, Great Places and The Brick will ensure that those in need will get the necessary wrap-around care so that they can access appropriate health, training and employment services, which will be vital to the scheme being a success. Winter Services As winter does set in and we have freezing conditions forecast, it’s also a time to think about what we can do to keep ourselves safe and well. At the first sign of illness, you can contact your local pharmacist and don’t forget to make sure you have any medicines you need to last you over the Christmas and New Year period – especially if you have prescription medication. Not all pharmacies will be open over the bank holidays so do take a look here for opening times across Tameside and Glossop. While adverse weather conditions can result in some difficulties and disruption, we can reduce or avoid the impact by making sure we are well prepared – take a look here for some simple steps such as making sure you keep your homes warm, looking after vulnerable neighbours and driving safety tips. Our teams are on call 24/7 and have 4500 tonnes of locally mined salt stocks to help keep our networks clear but please do take care on the roads in the winter months ahead. Children’s Services leadership As part of our on-going strategy to drive improvement in children’s services, I’m pleased to an- nounce the appointment of Gani Martins as interim AED overseeing social care and safeguard- ing. Gani, who starts on 13 December, was the Assistant Director in Salford from 2011 to 2014, lead- ing their improvement from Inadequate to Good, and has since held leadership and improvement roles in Wirral, Blackpool, Oldham and Bradford. Her wealth of experience will significantly strengthen our leadership team and I‘m sure we all look forward to welcoming her and supporting her in her in her new role. Celebrating our adult learners The Tameside ACE Learning awards held at Dukinfield Town Hall last week were a wonderful way to celebrate the hard work, commitment and perseverance of our Adult and Community Education learners. More than 100 people attended as certificates were presented to people who had completed cours- es in maths, English, ICT, childcare, retail or enterprise. Pictured is Steven, winner of the John Sym- ington Learner of the Year Award. I know from people who attended that the sense of achievement and personal satisfaction in the Jubilee Hall was palpable as people stepped up to get their awards in front of family and friends. There was a great turnout and everyone enjoyed the evening. Well done to everyone involved and all our adult learners on their success. Tameside ACE offers courses for adults aged 19 and over in employment skills and skills for life in- cluding maths, English, ICT, childcare, retail and enterprise as well as job-searching, confidence- building, British Sign Language and ESOL (English for speakers of other languages). For more infor- mation or to ask for a prospectus, call 0161 342 4063 or visit www.tameside.gov.uk/adultlearning Steps to support care home staff You may have heard in the news yesterday following a report, that sadly more than half of care home beds in some parts of England, which included Greater Manchester, are in homes rated inade- quate or requires improvement. In Tameside, we are responsible for commissioning a number of beds in the privately run care homes within the borough and so it’s important that we continue our on-going work with care homes, alongside our health partners, to both monitor and improve the quality of support provided to protect our vulnerable, elderly, residents. We understand the chal- lenges faced by private care homes and we are working closely with the service providers to ensure that we have a high standard of care that is both affordable and sustainable. That said we recognise that some of our providers are failing to meet our required standards and we are seeking their co- operation to achieve the necessary grade. Last week was a good example of the work underway, which saw our second engagement event with the Care Home and Care Home with Nursing Managers in Tameside. We’ve been working to- gether to jointly develop the contractual performance and quality assurance documentation which will be launched in January. The event also had updates from the Digital Health Service and Infec- tion Prevention and Control Team. A new webspace aimed specifically for Care Home and w/Nursing Managers has now also gone live on our CCG webpage. The aim of this page is to support local Care Home Managers and staff in delivery high quality care to our residents by providing links to good practice and offers of support. The webspace will continue to be developed and we’re very keen to have ideas for content and improvement. Please contact [email protected] for any input in this. Single Focus on raising Environmental Standards Last week I met our newly created Single Regulatory Service, which came into effect on the 1 Octo- ber. This brought together the majority of our Environmental Enforcement into one area all working much closer together under leadership provided by Emma Varnam. It was great to see the enthusiasm and energy in all of the teams as they embark on this new chal- lenge. Officers have moved into new teams, working with new colleagues and are embracing new challenges as they train and skill up to enforce a wider range of functions which includes enforce- ment in Planning, Car Parking and Highways, Waste, Environmental Health, Trading Standards, Envi- ronmental Protection, Housing, Public Health, Anti-Social Behaviour and Licensing. It was lovely to see the ideas that originally came out of the staff engagement sessions come to frui- tion. This is a service that is continuing to make service improvements, save money and build more resilience into the teams creating a service that is continuing to keep our communities safe and de livering on our priorities. Flying start to Tameside Christmas Market We’ve had lots of fantastic feedback since the launch of Tameside Christmas Market last Friday, which got off to a flying start with free rides on the helter skelter as well as shopping, entertainment, food and drink. Special thanks to the wonderful choir from Inspire Academy whose beautiful singing at the official opening, attended by the Civic Mayor Cllr Joyce Bowerman and Father Christmas, real- ly got everyone in the festive mood. The Christmas market, in Market Street, Ashton, will continue to run for the next two weekends (1-3 December and 8-10 December) with free rides on the carousel this weekend and a Ferris wheel for the finale weekend. It’s also Small Business Saturday tomorrow – another good reason to visit your local town centres and support the many excellent independent traders while doing your Christmas shopping. Christmas donations Thank you to everyone who has already very kindly donated to our collections for local food banks and the Tameside Toy Appeal - there’s still time to contribute if you would like to. All local libraries and Customer Services at Clarence Arcade are collecting for donations, or you can drop off at one of the following workplace collection points: Dukinfield Town Hall - Lynsey Potter; Hattersley Hub - Charlotte Lee; Tameside Street - Charlotte Allen; Hyde Town Hall - Christine Hyde; Denton Centre - Nicola Martin; Stalybridge Civic Hall - Letitia Price; Two Trees – Niamh Wilson; Margaret Street – Jennifer French. The deadline for foodbank donations is next Friday 8 December while the Toy Ap- peal deadline is the following Friday 15 December. We’re also collecting chocolate selection boxes for Tameside children living in poverty. For details of collections points or to arrange a collection from your own office call one the following: Paul Wain 0161 342 2684; Joelle Earnshaw 0161 342 4092; Rebecca Underwood 0161 342 3750 or; Rebecca Price 0161 342 2722. That’s all for this week, Steven .