New Deal Pages

These pages are produced by the New Deal executive team

Burngreave New Deal - Behind the Scenes 

At the January meeting, the New Deal Board approved the introduction of a new staff structure of Burngreave New Deal, to build on existing skills in the organisation and move the programme forward in to a new phase of project delivery. 
We have openly advertised all new posts during March but we also held a recruitment fair at the Furnival to promote our new jobs particularly to Burngreave residents and every household in our area received copies of job advertisements before they were publicised in local and national papers. We hope that local people will apply for these posts - with the right mix of community and project development skills within our organisation’s new structure, we are confident we can build on the previous hard work and success achieved during the development phase last year. In 2002, we want to start delivering visible results to benefit the thousands of Burngreave residents through many new projects around our theme areas, which are: Community Development, Training, Education, Health, Housing, Environment, Employment, Crime

Apprenticeship Scheme

We want to make sure that local people have the chance to be trained in regeneration skills and are developing a new project in the very near future. It is a New Deal Apprenticeship Scheme paying £12,000 to £14,000 per year plus full training, travel and childcare costs. Twenty local people will benefit from training within the New Deal staff team over the next 8 years. We are able to offer this programme to Burngreave residents only because it is a training programme. Over 2 years, all trainees will work with each New Deal Theme manager and will gain experience in appraisal, monitoring and finance functions of the programme. This will allow people to apply for jobs with marketable skills not just in the New Deal staff team in the future, but also in our new projects, local organisations, the health family, local authority, and the police. After completing the Apprenticeship Scheme, Burngreave residents will have a good chance of getting jobs afterwards because there is a national shortage of people with the right mix of community and regeneration skills. We will be flexible in the training packages within the scheme by developing an individual learning plan with trainees to acknowledge their previous qualifications, learning and experience. This may range from MBAs to NVQs depending on the person’s previous experience. 
The Apprentice Scheme will soon be discussed at the New Deal Board and a detailed application for funding will then be sent to Government Office. As soon as it is approved, we will publicise the scheme in Burngreave Messenger and through local groups and newsletters.

Front of House - Inclusive and engaging
Want to know more about what’s going on? We’re working on that too.
We held three community events during January giving local residents the opportunity to meet Board members and New Deal staff. We are now reviewing those events to look at what went well, and how we can further improve community events and public consultation. 
We will soon establish regular opportunities for you to feedback to us on a whole range of issues. Keep an eye out for details in a future edition of the Messenger.

Part of the New Deal Board meetings are open to the public and you are welcome to come along. You can contact the New Deal office on 2796932 to find out when and where meetings are held and get copies of agendas, previous minutes or general programme information.

We’re keen to develop information that is easily available on demand, useful, and above all readable. We are seeking to make information available in local libraries, medical centres and schools in a friendly, understandable format that reaches as many people as possible. Later this year we intend developing a New Deal website which will carry lots of information about New Deal projects and link you to information on other services in Burngreave – we will also give you the opportunity to contact us by e-mail with your comments, questions and suggestions. 

Getting You More Involved

We will translate the Delivery Plan into an easy to read guide later this year and we will start planning next year’s delivery plan in the Autumn because we recognise that we did not start this process early enough this year. We want to discuss new projects and activities with more of you and find out what ideas you have to help us achieve our vision. 

We will update residents on how existing and new projects are progressing each month in the Messenger and publicise ways you can become more involved in our theme groups.

New Deal Elections

Chris Booth is a Neighbourhood Renewal Adviser at Sheffield Hallam University. She is helping several members of the New Deal Board carry out an independent review of the 2001 election. As well as looking at timescales, organisational information, publicity, delays and votes registered, the outcomes of the review will help to inform this year’s elections. The recommendations following this review will be presented to the New Deal Board in May. This will allow us to hold elections later this year and get more people from the local community on to our Partnership Board. 

Developing our second Delivery Plan

Although the Government has allocated £52 million to Burngreave over a ten-year period, we still have to produce a delivery plan each year before they release any funding to us. 

We have been working on the delivery plan for 2002/03 for the past two months and submitted it during February. We are waiting for Government Office approval so we can spend over £4 million from this April until
March 2003. The year 2 plan focuses on developing projects to address issues around crime, education, health, community involvement and employment. In coming years we will fund work to start large housing and environmental improvements.

BNDfC SMALL GRANTS FUND LAUNCHED 

Hello I’m Shazia Rehman, I am a Burngreave resident and I have just been appointed as a Trainee Small Grants/Funding Worker. A new bidding round is now open for the Burngreave New Deal for Communities (BNDfC) Small Grants Fund. 

Only groups within the Burngreave New Deal area are eligible. The fund aims to make small grants available to fund project development, pilot initiatives, small scale projects and feasibility studies, as well as more general training, that improves the effectiveness of Organisations/groups. There will be a workshop on 10th April 02 to assist applicants on any queries on Burngreave New Deal for Communities Small Grants Fund application form please contact me of Ased Saddiq at Black CARD for further details.

HOW MUCH IS AVAILABLE?
The maximum established organisations/groups can apply for is £5,000 per financial year, for a one off maximum award. . 
New groups/organisations can individually apply for a minimum of £1,000 per financial year, for a one off maximum award.

HOW TO APPLY?

Contact Shazia Rehman or Ased Saddiq Black CARD 91 Wicker, Sheffield, S3 8HT, Tel 0114 263 4404, Fax 0114 270 1920 for information packs and further details.
CLOSING DATE FOR PPLICATIONS 
26th April 2002

Time out to think

The Board will review the role of Theme groups, which were established to develop New Deal projects, at an Away Day. 

Members will also review how they work as part of the New Deal Board and discuss ways it can become more accountable to local people. We will also examine our community engagement and communications strategies and what the programme’s priorities are for next few years. These were some of the important issues raised by members of the public during our February Board meeting, when we dedicated the whole session to listen to residents’ concerns about the programme. We will publicise all decisions made by the Board at their Away Day in a future issue of the Messenger.

Creating a better Burngreave for everyone

‘We look forward to the day when we say to a friend “I live in Burngreave” and they reply, “That’s nice. I wish I did.”

This statement, developed with the local community, sums up our core business and vision for Burngreave. To bring down crime, improve health and housing, create local jobs for local people, and improve the street scene.

We are supporting around 75 new projects this year to reach this vision. We will also be funding a project co-ordinator to make sure Burngreave gets the best possible services from the Council and other agencies by working with local officers to plan how they will deliver services, for example around crime, and setting targets to measure improvements over the longer term. 

We have allocated £50,000 to help fund additional childcare activities and are funding a study to develop a local agency, which will support groups and employ staff in our projects.

We have funded several studies looking into existing local facilities, buildings and the Spital Hill area. These will be completed by the end of June the findings will be used to guide the future allocation of New Deal funding to improve our area’s environment and facilities for both businesses and community groups.

New Deal Board to become a legal body

At the February meeting, the New Deal Board agreed unanimously to establish itself as a legal entity this year. We have yet to decide what kind of legal body we will become but we are going to look at all the options available to make sure we get the best for Burngreave .

At present, New Deal staff are employed by the local organisation BCAT. As we mentioned earlier, we are recruiting many new staff and trainees over the next few months, which means we will need well experienced personnel advice and established systems to support our new employees. It is for this reason that the New Deal Board, also at its February meeting agreed, by a majority decision, that from 1st April 2002 until it becomes a legal body, all our staff will be employed by our Accountable Body, the Council. We must stress that this is only a temporary measure and as soon as we have legal status, all New Deal staff will be transferred to our employment. Terms and conditions have yet to be finalised and some of these will be developed in consultation with the Board and new staff in post after 1 April 2002.

This interim measure has been approved to provide our partnership with an effective human resource function during the recruitment and induction of new staff whilst the many necessary legal procedures, documents and processes are developed for the new legal entity, including in-house personnel expertise. We are looking forward to confirming our commitment to the programme by establishing the Board as a recognised, legal partnership.

What do you think? Join the debate on our Local Government and New Deal bulletin board