One City

Top 4 Priorities

Each year we use the results of research and consultation with our residents and stakeholders to come up projects that will enhance quality of life in Westminster. These cover four areas: Order, Opportunity, Enterprise and Renewal. Projects can be new initiatives or improvements to existing services but woven through each, is our One City approach: to strengthen community relations, promote active citizenship, unite neighbourhoods and enhance customer service.

Westminster’s top priorities for 2008/09 are:

Family Recovery Programme

One City themes: Order, Opportunity

Lead Cabinet Portfolios: Community Protection, Adults & Health, Children’s Services

Objective: To identify families most at risk of breakdown, including those with health, housing, parenting, substance misuse and other problems, and any involvement in crime and anti-social behaviour, and to provide strong challenge and support to improve the quality of life of the whole community.

What will it involve? We will identify those families who can have a disproportionate and negative effect on their communities, linked to alcohol and substance misuse, parenting problems, a negative housing situation and crime and anti-social behaviour. By working with the police, health service, and benefits and housing services as part of a new and innovative partnership, we will work intensively with these families to intervene in high-pressure situations earlier to improve the quality of life of the whole community. Linked to that work, over the next year we will agree a definition, across all public services, about what constitutes a ‘Prominent Family’ and work together, with our partners, to identify opportunities to strengthen the support available from across the public sector. But Prominent Families should be in no doubt about the negative impact their behaviour has on their neighbourhood. All public services will, therefore, work together where appropriate to monitor, challenge and address this behaviour.

Community Build Programme

One City theme: Opportunity, Renewal

Lead Cabinet Portfolio: Housing

Objective: To launch the first phase of the council’s Community Build programme – housing-led regeneration of Westminster’s estates, helping to meet the needs of residents by providing opportunities to build new, much needed additional affordable and other tenure homes.

What will it involve? We will aim to make housing available to local residents who need it, including larger homes for local families who are currently living in overcrowded conditions. Our objective is to build a mix of tenures, including shared and low-cost home ownership for people who are struggling to get a foot on the property ladder. We are keen to develop housing opportunities for all of Westminster’s residents: people looking to downsize, first time buyers, those in private-rented accommodation and those looking for shared ownership opportunities. We will link Community Build to other local needs and initiatives to improve whole neighbourhoods. Our consultation with residents about what they would like to see in their local area will begin in 2008 with the first 13 Community Build schemes, delivering in excess of 500 new homes. We will develop deliverable plans for these schemes and, subject to external funding agreements, by the end of the year we plan to be on site with the first Community Build development.

Westminster Apprenticeship Scheme

One City theme: Opportunity, Enterprise

Lead Cabinet Portfolios: Children’s Services, Economic Development and Transport

Objective: For the council to act as a local best practice employer, providing secure paid employment alongside training and on-the-job experience for local young people.

What will it involve? The council will launch an apprenticeship scheme that will see the authority delivering best practice employment alongside accredited training courses. The strategy for 2008 forms an important part of Westminster’s 14-19 partnership work to introduce more vocational education and training opportunities for young people. In the initial pilot scheme, the council will identify 12 young people who would benefit from training and experience in a range of different areas including business administration, customer service, health and social care and youth work. In so doing, the council will provide valuable job training for young people and a cost-effective solution to identifiable skills shortages in local service departments.

Go Green Programme – The Next Phase

One City theme: Renewal

Lead Cabinet Portfolio: Street Environment

Objective: As part of the council’s Go Green agenda the council will take forward a range of new and on-going initiatives in 2008/09 to help realise our ambition for Westminster to be one of the most environmentally sustainable cities in the UK.

What will it involve? This will include work with Westminster’s business community to develop a new ‘Carbon Partnership’ to reduce the carbon footprint of not only the council but organisations across the city. We will provide direct help and support to businesses and organisations across Westminster to secure carbon reduction commitments by sharing best practice, identifying barriers and working to 'unblock' them. Options for achieving this include workshops, energy audits, forming links with other carbon-reducing organisations, and rewarding/praising good practice. Key to the success will be attracting participants and having accurate and reliable data. To make the Westminster model unique, we will develop proposals for a ‘Local Carbon Offset Scheme’, where large companies within the city can make voluntary contributions towards offsetting their own carbon emissions by supporting energy saving initiatives in small businesses and voluntary organisations (rather than the traditional offsetting by tree planting or participating in renewable energy schemes in far away destinations).

Other aspects of our wide ranging Go Green programme will include at least 10 further on-street recharging points for electric vehicles and a new focus on exploring how we can ‘retrofit’ environmental sustainability in Westminster’s unique historic built environment.