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West Sussex County Council Local Area Agreement

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Summary

West Sussex County Council produced its first Local Area Agreement (LAA) in 2006, with a subsequent refresh for April 2007. Within the theme of sustainable communities there is a specific cultural outcome “Better opportunities for sports and cultural activities for all sections of the community”. Culture and sport are also identified within the LAA as a cross cutting contributor with a specific contribution to make to the overarching outcomes for sustainable communities, skills, feeling safer and health.
Background
West Sussex County Council was in the second round of authorities to develop Local Area Agreements (LAAs). Their 2006 LAA, along with the subsequent refresh for April 2007, reflect the importance of culture and sport in their own right and the cross cutting contribution that it makes to local priority outcomes for sustainable communities, skills, reducing crime and fear of crime and health.

Key themes
The West Sussex LAA contains 22 outcomes grouped under four blocks of:
  • sustainable communities
  • better skills
  • feeling safer
  • better health

Key outcomes

The key outcomes in the 2007 LAA refresh that culture and sport contribute to are:

Sustainable Communities

Within the LAA there is a specific cultural outcome under sustainable communities:

Outcome 20: Better opportunities for sports and cultural activities for all sections of the community.
Objectives:
  • increase access to cultural and sports activities, including volunteering, to enhance social inclusion and well-being.
  • promote schemes that celebrate local distinctiveness and sense of place, including the employment of artists and other cultural professionals in master planning and regeneration, to protect and promote the county’s unique environment and heritage
  • work across other outcomes to ensure sport and culture make a positive contribution to individual lives and community activity in recognition of the emerging cultural entitlement agenda
  • to sustain and develop the county’s cultural infrastructure and economy
Measures:
  • the number of educational establishments with sports and/or cultural facilities available for community use
  • the number of people aged 16 and above participating in cultural and sporting opportunities
  • number of children and young people accessing a wide range of high quality positive activities and informal education opportunities

Outcome 15: Encourage entrepreneurship and increase business start ups, including social enterprises.
Objective:
  • to make West Sussex the best place to start or grow a business, through removing barriers to business development and encouraging managed and sustainable growth
Measure:
  • the number of businesses supported by sector (including the tourism sector)

In addition, culture and sport are seen as contributing to:

Better Skills:
Outcome 4: Improve workforce skills
Objective:
  • to increase the range of and access to training opportunities, especially in care, construction, visitor economy (including tourism and hospitality, sport and recreation) and engineering
Measure:
  • increase the number of adults on level 3 programmes in the following key sectors and areas of CoVE activity: Tourism (inc sport & recreation)

Feeling Safer
Outcome 10: Children and young people make a positive contribution, participate constructively in their community and are valued for their contribution
Objective:
  •  to improve opportunities for young people to become responsible and active citizens, involve them in decisions that affect them, their local community and society as a whole, and ease the transition to adulthood. To improve positive behaviour and reduce the incidence of vandalism, anti-social behaviour and crime within local communities
Measure:
  • increase the number of young people involved in volunteering opportunities, including leisure, recreation, sport and culture, particularly those young people from priority groups and areas:
    • Outset / Millennium volunteers 
    • participants in Duke of Edinburgh award scheme 
    • Duke of Edinburgh Awards obtained 
    • young people volunteering with the youth service

Better Health:
Outcome 13: Children and young people be healthy - enjoying good physical and emotional health and choosing to live a healthy lifestyle
Objective:
  • to promote the physical and emotional well being of children and young people. To encourage healthy lifestyle choices and reduce health inequalities that prevent children and young people from maximising their life chances
Measures:
  • percentage of young people taking 30 minutes of moderate physical exercise on three or more occasions per week.
  • percentage of young people taking 30 minutes of moderate physical exercise on five or more occasions per week.

What has been done so far
The May 2007 LAA progress report and performance tables confirm that:
  • the baseline for physical activity by young people has now been set based on a lifestyle survey of year 10 pupils across West Sussex (14-15 year olds). The survey will be repeated in 3 years in order to establish whether the target has been reached. In the baseline survey, 69% of respondents did 30 minutes of exercise on 3 or more occasions per week
  • the MEND programme has been implemented by the West Sussex Obesity Partnership which includes a specially adapted exercise programme for children who do not naturally like to exercise
  • a new audit of educational establishments is proposed
  • cultural participation targets are on track

Contact:

Lorna Brown, Head of Arts and Cultural Strategy, West Sussex County Council
Tel. 01243 756770
E-mail: Lorna.Brown@westsussex.gov.uk





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