Calls for community councils to play bigger role in wellbeing strategy

Twm Owen, Local Democracy Reporter

Local town and community councils should be included in a plan to help people live healthy, long and independent lives, senior council officials have been told. 

The Living Well Monmouthshire plan is intended to bring all of the county council’s departments together to focus on wellbeing and is intended as a preventative approach to supporting health and reduce demand on council services. 

Councillor Penny Jones asked “where are the town and community councils” when the plan was presented to the council’s people scrutiny committee. 

Digital skills

The Conservative councillor for Raglan, who is also a member of the local community council, said it supports a coffee and computer session and said: “It’s very successful and for older people to learn digital skills and IT and also reduces social isolation.” 

But she said the community council hasn’t been involved in the planning of the strategy and said she would like the county council to include a representative on its working groups. She also reminded officers, and cabinet member Councillor Ian Chandler, local councils are also able to award small grants. 

She said: “We can provide finance in terms of grants and that can be a deal breaker.” 

Her colleague, Goytre member Jan Butler, said her community council supports a coffee morning and a well being café and also said alongside community halls there are venues across the county supporting activities. She said: “There’s some really good work being done.” 

Labour member for Caldicot West End Jill Bond questioned why the strategy’s proposed programme board, which will include three cabinet members, the council’s chief executive and the chief officer for social care as well as a representative of voluntary groups and the local health board’s director for public health, won’t include anyone from education. 

Jane Rogers, the council’s chief officer for social services, said the intention is to see an impact from the strategy within two to five years and it will be concentrated on older groups but said there is some “really good work going on already” aimed at children and young people. 

Local knowledge

In response to Cllr Jones the senior officer said she recognised the good work town and community councils do and their local knowledge and said they were “absolutely within the conversation” in the council’s workshop group and said the strategy is still at a draft stage and the authority has a community development team that has a direct link to the local councils. 

Green Party member Cllr Chandler, who has responsibility for social care and accessible health services in the Labour-led cabinet, said the strategy is intended to make the council’s policies to tackle inequality and reduce poverty and to bolster community support “more sustainable”. 

Cllr Chandler said it is intended the strategy will have an impact beyond the current administration and its overall aim is: “Residents, especially our more vulnerable and deprived residents, are enabled to live healthier and independently for longer – boosting their wellbeing as well as delaying or reducing their call on statutory services.”