## **Minutes of meeting held on Monday 18[th] July 2022 on Microsoft Teams** ## **PRESENT** |**PRESENT**|| |---|---| |Christine Graham(Trustee)|Independent Chair| |Ged Dempsey|3 Pillars| |Keith Jones|CAB| |Steven Pettican|Light Project Peterborough| |Sarah Scase|Peterborough CityCouncil| |Sean Evans(Trustee)|Peterborough CityCouncil| |Emma Rogers|Peterborough CityCouncil| |Kevin Dawson(Trustee)|Peterborough SoupKitchen| ## **APOLOGIES** |**APOLOGIES**|| |---|---| |Ali Manji|Cross Keys Homes| |Rachel Patterson|Hope Into Action| |Sharon Keogh|Kingsgate| |FayHirel(Trustee)|Longhurst Group| |Clair George|Peterborough CityCouncil| |Laura Kelsey|Peterborough CityCouncil| |Adrian Chapman|Peterborough CityCouncil| |Jade Statt|Street Vet| ## 1 **Welcome and introductions** - Christine welcomed everyone to the meeting and explained that the first part of the meeting will cover the AGM matters. ## **AGM MATTERS** ## 2 **Election of Trustees** Christine explained that, in line with our constitution, this being our first AGM, all four trustees must stand down. All are willing to stand for a further year. (Trustees may serve three terms in total) - Christine Graham - Fay Hirel - Kevin Dawson - Sean Evans Christine asked the meeting to indicate their support for these nominations. The meeting unanimously accepted the nominations. Christine explained that the Trustees have divided the responsibilities as follows: - Christine – Chair, point of contact, monitoring emails, oversight of action plan - Kevin – social media - Fay – Finance - Sean – Website Christine explained that, as this is the AGM, the statement of accounts should be presented. However, due to the problems with CAF that have been explained before, and are now, thankfully resolved, it has not been possible to do this. These will be circulated at a later date. ## **GENERAL MEETING MATTERS** - 3 **Review of membership** Christine advised that, in line with the action plan, the trustees have reviewed the membership of the partnership. We had previously agreed that it is important that all those appearing on the website as members must be active. The following organisations have been offered more than one opportunity to submit their organisation form and have not responded, therefore they have been removed from the membership: - Children of Adam - Salvation Army - Veterans for the Homeless - YMCA Kevin asked about what the process would be if these organisations felt that they would like to rejoin. Christine suggested that if this were the case they would be very if they were able to provide assurance of engagement with the partnership. The meeting agreed that this was an appropriate approach. Sean is now organising for the website to be updated accordingly. Sean said that he has taken over the responsibility for the website from PCC and is just waiting for details for the Wordpress account and he will then be able to make alterations. _Action: Sean Evans_ Ged said that a new manager has been appointed at Outside Links. It was agreed that he would provide the contact details and Christine would get in touch. _Action: Christine Graham_ - 4 **Finance report** On Fay’s behalf, Christine gave Fay’s apologies that, due to teething problems with accessing the different accounts, a finance report is not available for the meeting. This will be circulated. _Action: Fay Hirel and Christine Graham_ ## 5 **Review of Social Media Policy** Kevin thanked PCC for having pulled this together in the first instance. He felt that having reviewed it, there was not much to be altered. The main issue is that the partners were asked to provide content. All agreed that this had been a great aspiration but had not worked in practice, therefore it would be removed, and the policy would be reworded to encourage partners to share posts. _Action: Emma_ The revised policy would be circulated. _Action: Christine_ Kevin explained that he has started following more and more organisations, particularly SOS members and is commenting a lot more. He is hopeful that this will pick up more material. Emma was asked if she had any other suggestions. She agreed that sharing content from other organisations was a good conduit. Sean explained that there is frequent activity from rough sleeper outreach team, but this does not go through the PCC channel as often as it could go through SOS. It was agreed that Sarah would ask Kelly to provide Kevin with regular information for him to post. _Action: Kelly and Kevin_ ## 6 **Review of Donations Policy** Christine reminded the meeting of the current donations policy and explained that, when the policy was agreed, we agreed that we would actively discourage the public from donating to members of the public as there was an offer available to all. Christine explained that, in light of recent changes, it would be helpful to revisit this and consider if we are still happy to accept this stance. Christine began by asking Sarah about whether the number of those with no access to support had changed. Sareh explained that more than ever the Council had been able to provide support to the cohort with restricted eligibility – such as help to get employment, EUSS application, immigration advice. She explained that, Kelly can, if concerned about someone eg health or mental health provide temporary accommodation for a short time whilst they engage agencies to improve their status. Keith explained that the situation for CAB is not good at present. Due to reductions in funding, CAB no longer have premises and the only service that they provide is a telephone service. They had been receiving calls from 1000 unique callers a month (of which they were able to answer a third) but last three months this has increased to 1500 a month and they have no more capacity. He explained that they had lost most of the specialist staff so are no longer able to take on casework. As those living on streets usually accessed the open door service they are being excluded and are not accessing support. Steven said that there is a challenge between not encouraging them to stay on the streets and supporting them if they are destitute. He gave the example of one person who can’t’ work, can’t claim benefits and can’t return to their country of origin. He also said that others are getting offers and won’t accept these. He made the point that we have to balance between now giving out suncream, that is much needed and not returning to the situation of mass sleeping bags at Christmas. Sean made the point that Brexit was impactful as a number of people went home but we are left with those who are entrenched rough sleeping and possibly street drinking. The challenge is how we support them with accommodation. He made the point that Brexit has brought clarity about who is eligible or who is not. He explained that PCC has been successful in the latest round of RSI 5 funding with securing 3 year’s funding for a number of initiatives. One of these will be providing ad hoc accommodation to those not eligible for support but this will be dependent on supporting them to a position that they are eligible. He made the point that there is still a small cohort for whom this is a million miles away. Christine asked about the size of the cohort with no access to support and Sarah confirmed that this has not increased in size. Sean said that this is because the team are effective at capturing people before they get to hard core entrenched. Ged made the point that we need to provide food to vulnerable people, along with sleeping bags as the alternative is that we abandon them. Sean said that, this is important but that we do not want people to randomly issue items, but that this must be done in a co-ordinated way and we should be encouraging the public to donate to SOS. Ged said that this was a good policy if there is a planned route to people being supported off the streets but, in his experience, there is no clear route, and it seems that there are so many hoops to jump through and that this entrenched group of people are not the easiest to support. He made the point that when they control when they are giving out sleeping bags and tents and do, on occasion, refuse. It was agreed that Kelly and Sarah would speak to Ged outside the meeting to identify the areas where Ged feels the system is not working. _Action: Ged, Kelly and Sarah_ ## **ACTION PLAN** ## 7 **Involving those with lived experience** Steven spoke to a report that had been circulated in advance. He reiterated the point that we need to be careful that, in giving them lived experience work, they are not able to go into work. He said that one person who has worked with them is now in work so consideration needs to be given to the times of meetings. Sean supported developing this work and said that he had worked with the group from LPP and this had been very useful. It was agreed that the Trustees would revisit the policy for allocating SOS funds with a view to paying expenses of those EbE. _Action: Trustees_ It was agreed that Christine would speak to Steven about how this could be done. _Action: Christine and Steven_ ## **Those with no recourse to public funds (NRPF)** - 8 **Those with no recourse to public funds (NRPF)** Christine explained that, as set out in the action plan, there had been a meeting earlier in the year that involved a number of agencies from the voluntary, community and faith sector. Christine asked, in light of the discussion earlier in the meeting ‘what are the gaps we are trying fill?’ Steven explained that the Safe Sleeping Spaces (SSS) works well for those who are some struggling with ID and EU settled status, or struggling with RPF status as this gives a window for the PCC team to work at getting those things in place. He explained that these people’s needs are being met by the church, city council and LPP. Sean said that the SSS are excellent for people who have history of rough sleeping but are not ready to come into accommodation as it provides a stop gap to ready them to have a roof over their heads. It also provides accommodation for those not eligible for assistance, to get them to a point that they are eligible. It was acknowledged that the difficulty comes with drug and alcohol issues when the progress they make in SSS is minimal, if at all. The point was made that once the SSS is occupied by someone not able to move on then the resource is lost in the system. Steven said they have some grant funding from PCC, but it is not full cost recovery. He said that LPP is looking at costing going forwards over the years, but they are always looking for funding and are happy to work with partners. Steven made the point that, if the city wants to embrace the project, then it needs to fund it. He explained that churches are already giving a lot as they are paying for utilities and supporting people 24/7. In response to a question, Steven said that a unit costs £10 per night excluding utilities and staff. Christine suggested that we focus upon funding these SSS as part of our winter campaign. Emma said that, regards a campaign, this would be very popular with the public and would help in messaging about not donating clothes etc. Sarah cautioned that we must bear in mind that housing is not always is the solution. She said that during COVID everyone was housed, and services were brought to them in the hotels -jobs, help with ID, drug and alcohol services but some people did not take up on the offers. She also said that if, as a collective we are offering enhanced support to those who not eligible we need to consider the consequences if we are offering more than surrounding areas as we do not want people to come here because there is more help. Steven responded by saying that whilst we do invest a lot with people from local services, there will be people who slip through the gaps. He said that if we recognise that people did not engage, we need to ask ‘is it them? Or is it us?’ He said we need to ask why are we stuck? Why is there so much resource into people with apparently little effect? What can we do differently? He said that we need to bring those who are falling through the gaps to the partners so that we can try and resolve the issues. Sean said that we need to acknowledge that for some individuals attempts to bring them into accommodation will not work and that there will be people who go through the system without making progress. He balanced this by saying that we cannot give up on people because they don’t progress. Christine asked how do we learn from the case studies that are being shared. Sean said that the Task and Targeting meeting is already happening and many of the people who we have mentioned will be discussed at that meeting. He said that there is value in SOS having a voice at that meeting which it does through its members. Christine made the point that this is offering a tactical approach, but the same issues must keep coming up and where is the strategic approach to tackling the gaps in the system and where is the challenge to the system. Sean said that the Homelessness Strategy Steering Group provides this. Christine asked the question – if there is a meeting for tactical and strategic issues, what is SOS adding to this issue? What is the space that we occupy? Where can we challenge? Christine said that she was unclear on the connectivity between the groups and where does SOS go if it wishes to challenge? Ged agreed that SOS needs to work in a strategic way with a route mapped out for those how fall off the programme. He said that SOS should not just be a talking shop but where the status quo can be challenged. It was agreed that initially Sean would provide a flowchart that sets out the connectivity and where SOS sits. _Action: Sean_ Sean said that he thought that SOS is a collective space for organisations to come together – to share our work and provide an opportunity to make people aware of what people are doing – as well as overcome problems that we are facing. He said that, in terms of driving them forward, SOS is essential as most of the work that has happened in improving our response to rough sleeping has been driven by partners. Emma –said that she thought that the purpose is to make sure we are working as one city to end rough sleeping and make sure we are not all pulling in different directions and are not wasting our efforts. Christine brought the meeting to a close by saying that she thought that this was the beginning of a conversation and encouraged all members (both those who were present and were not present) to feed in their views to her. ## **SOS Financial Report** |**SOS Financial Report**|**SOS Financial Report**|**SOS Financial Report**|**SOS Financial Report**|**SOS Financial Report**|**SOS Financial Report**|**SOS Financial Report**|**SOS Financial Report**| |---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| |Date Range Jan 22 - Sept 22|||||||| ||**January**|**February**|**March**|**April**|**May**|**June**|**July**| |**_Online donations_**|||||||| |Direct Debits|£39.20|£39.20|£39.20|£36.20|£170.50|£112.70|£112.70| |CAF Donate|||||||| |Paypal||||£48.20|||£96.40| |Cardpayments|£53.88||£4.82|£48.20|£69.41||| |EasyFundraising||£48.39||||£54.11|| |**SUB TOTAL**|**£93.08**|**£87.59**|**£44.02**|**£132.60**|**£239.91**|**£166.81**|**£209.10**| |**_Contactless Payments_**|||||||| |Bridge Street|£0.00|£0.00|£0.00|£0.00|£0.00|£0.00|£0.00| |**GRAND TOTAL**|||||||| **Balance at bank on 30[th] September 2022 is £12,963.26** |**August**|**September**|**October**|**November**|**December**|**Year to Date**| |---|---|---|---|---|---| ||||||| |£161.70|£161.70||||**£873.10**| ||||||**£0.00**| |£72.30|||||**£216.90**| ||||||**£176.31**| ||||||**£102.50**| |**£234.00**|**£161.70**|**£0.00**|**£0.00**|**£0.00 **|**£1,368.81**| ||||||| |£0.00|£0.00||||| ||||||**£1,368.81**|