A

PURPOSE OF THE REPORT

This report is a response to the mandate from the Executive Management Board to proceed with the development of an Oldham Partnership Alcohol Strategy with a proposal that the Health & Wellbeing Partnership Board provide strategic oversight for the project.

B

PROPOSAL

Members of the Board will already be aware of the challenges faced by Oldham relating to alcohol. However, it is clear that there is a lack of a Partnership Vision and Strategy to address these problems. Therefore, whilst operational officers are engaged in extremely valuable alcohol harm reduction activity, this lacks strategic direction. Previous attempts to develop a strategy have resulted in operational action plans and a failure to address the key strategic decisions necessary to take effective action across the Borough.

Strategy Content

The proposal is to develop a strategy under the following key issues:

This proposed content has been devised after an assessment of Oldham's approach to Alcohol Harm Reduction carried out by the Department of Health recently, the outcome and report of the “Big Drink Debate” and a workshop of a small group of senior officers from NHS Oldham, the Council Trading Standards and Licensing, GMP and the Drug & Alcohol Action Team.

Governance

In order to ensure that the product of this work can gain the necessary endorsement of the Oldham Partnership, it is critical to establish a governance structure for the project from the outset. This governance structure is short term and only to be in place for the development of the Strategy. The Strategy itself will need to identify how, thereafter, strategic leadership and governance will be achieved in the future.

At Board Level, it is proposed that the project will be accountable to the Health & Wellbeing Partnership Board. The Board may wish to consider establishing a sub-group to lead the project.

HEALTH & WELLBEING PARTNERSHIP BOARD

The primary group for drawing together the Strategy will consist of the Director of Public Health, Superintendent (Criminal Justice & Partnerships), Head of Trading Standards & Licensing, Drug & Alcohol Action Team Manager and the Assistant Executive Director, Enterprise and Economy.

ALCOHOL STRATEGY DEVELOPMENT GROUP

The existing Alcohol Strategy Steering Group needs to be reinvigorated and developed to ensure that representatives from all of the delivery agencies are engaged and contributing to the agenda. This Group will lead the evidence gathering to underpin a future strategy.

ALCOHOL STRATEGY WORKING

GROUP

C

CAPACITY & COST

The development of an Alcohol Strategy is a complex task involving demands on staff from all partner agencies. Some of the information is readily accessible, some may require commissioning. In addition, some senior level resource may be required to capture the work and prepare it for presentation to, eventually, the Oldham Partnership Executive. It is proposed that, at the project planning stage, specific commissioning requirements be identified and presented to the Health & Wellbeing Partnership Board.

D

RECOMMENDATION

The Health & Wellbeing Partnership Board are invited to approve the plans to produce a new Alcohol Strategy for the Borough by October 2009 and are invited to consider whether or not to establish a sub-group of the Board to have strategic oversight of the work.

Item number: 00