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Agenda item

Annual Report on Community Cohesion

Minutes:

The Partnership & CSP Manager presented a report which provided an update on the work of the Welsh Government funded Community Cohesion officer and the community cohesion work of Bridgend Community Safety Partnership.

 

In December 2018 Welsh Government issued their ‘intention to fund’ email to all Regional Community Cohesion Co-coordinators in Wales. Welsh Government indicated that each region would be allocated £140,000 to:

 

  • Identify and mitigate community tensions (hate crime, extremism, anxiety, anti-social behaviour) relating to Brexit;

 

  • Improve community cohesion communications;

 

  • Organise events/activities to promote social inclusion; and

 

  • Deliver non Brexit activities as outlined in the National Community Cohesion Plan (2019)

 

At that time Bridgend County Borough Council, (BCBC), Swansea Council and Neath Port Talbot County Borough Council made up the Western Bay Community Cohesion Region, led by a Regional Community Cohesion Co-coordinator based in Swansea Council.

 

She added that a Community Cohesion Officer in September 2019. The post was funded until 31 March 2021. She outlined the role of the Community Cohesion Officer as indicated in section 4 of the report

 

The Partnership & CSP Manager outlined the hate crime figures for the period April to September 2020 with a comparison to the previous 2 years. These were labelled as chart 1 and chart 2 in the report.

 

The Partnership & CSP Manager outlined the progress to date stating a large amount of work relating to Brexit being carried out. She explained that a key area of the Brexit work had been engaging with individuals and

communities to ensure maximum uptake of the European Union Settlement

Scheme (EUSS). More information on the EUSS was at Appendix 1.

 

She added that in the summer of 2020 an additional language skills survey was undertaken among BCBC employees. These were identified as follows:

 

  • French 4
  • Italian 3
  • German 3
  • Russian 2
  • Polish 2
  • Spanish 2
  • Japanese 1
  • Mandarin 1
  • Sinhala 1
  • Creole 1
  • Slovak 1
  • Cantonese 1
  • Czech 1
  • Ukrainian 1

 

Of the respondents to the survey, 59% agreed they would volunteer to support residents with specific language needs. Further progress to date was listed at 4.2 of the report.

 

The Regional Community Cohesion Coordinator outlined key points of the report relating to the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS) and the total people that applied to the scheme on a local and national level. He provided figures on this as well as a breakdown of figures for the Local Authorities in the Western Bay Region and the nationality of the applicants. These were listed in Appendix 1 of the report.

 

The Regional Community Cohesion Coordinator also provided figures on the ethnicities of pupils in schools in Bridgend which covered EU and Non EU ethnicities.

 

A Member asked in relation to the applications that were completed by Italian nationality, what the general age profile of these residents were and how long had they been in Bridgend before going through application process.

 

The Regional Community Cohesion Coordinator explained that the figures provided did not include Italians who had applied for a British nationality, but rather people who had kept their nationality as Italian, so there may have been many more in total, but he did not have data on the age profiles of these residents.

 

The Cabinet Member Communities thanked the Officers involved in this report and the research and work carried out in the community. He added that it was a shame that hate crime was an issue and there had been a spike during the times of Brexit, but the work carried out by our Officers had been welcomed.

 

The Partnership & CSP Manager added that it had been a difficult year as a whole, with Covid19 as well as Brexit coming to an end. There had been some work with regards to dealing with right wing extremism but with such uncertainty on what exactly will happen on January 1st 2021, it had been hard to focus on any one issue.

 

The Cabinet Member Communities added that there was a large amount of work being carried out by SWP also. He stated that there were lessons learned from 2016 during the spike in hate crime and these lessons were being implemented now to try and mitigate it.

 

The Chairperson stated that she had recently spoke with the Chief Executive, the Leader and the Young Mayor about issues surrounding news shared on social media and the importance of questioning the source of the information, to ensure that misinformation was not being spread. She added that this could be something that the Council looks at promoting. The Partnership & CSP Manager agreed that this was a subject worth promoting to raise awareness.

 

The Leader empathised the importance and value of everyone who lived, worked, and raised their families in Bridgend, and they were always welcome.

 

The Leader asked if a need for support or services to be provided through the process of the settlement scheme had been identified, particularly in relation to three largest groups identified.

 

The Regional Community Cohesion Coordinator explained that many of the communities had a champion or an establishment that people could reach out to. This was not the case for EU communities previously so this was something that was being worked towards.

 

The Cabinet Member Education and Regeneration thanked the team for their hard work on the report in identifying the range of groups from EU communities. He explained that a visit to Pen Y Bont Primary School may be beneficial as the school is one of the most diverse in Bridgend. He added that further collaboration from himself would be provided where possible.

 

The Chairperson added that it was inspiring see us go from having no data on EU Nationals, to having all the data included in the report and thanked everyone who worked on achieving this.

 

RESOLVED: That the Committee noted and accepted the contents of the report.

 

Supporting documents:

 

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