Welcome to the July 2023 edition of the Future of Essex Newsletter from Essex Partnership..
In this month’s issue, Essex Partnership share Safer Essex’s Community Safety Survey, and research on living and working in one of Essex’s Levelling Up areas.
As well as the latest on the CVS Infrastructure review, and share details of ECC’s new ‘Carbon Cutting Essex’ app, an application that helps you keep track of your carbon footprint, while educating users on climate change.
Residents Urged to Complete Countywide Community Safety Survey
A new survey which will help identify priorities to help tackle crime and anti-social behaviour in Essex has been launched.
The 13 Community Safety Partnerships (CSPs) in Essex, working under the umbrella group Safer Essex, have developed the survey to help identify the impacts of crime and anti-social behaviour in the county.
This is the first time a single online survey is available for Essex, and it will allow residents to not only respond about where they live, but also where they work or study in Essex, helping to create a complete countywide overview. The results of the survey will be used to help councils and Essex Police identify what the priorities should be for each area.
The survey covers all types of crime including burglary, theft, fly tipping and anti-social behaviour. To take part, visit: https://consultations.essex.gov.uk/equalities-and-partnership/community_safety_survey_2023
Living and Working in Rural Braintree
Research exploring experiences of working age residents who have financial difficulties and live in rural Braintree
This research aims to explore how rural communities may have different experiences compared with urban communities. The research sought to explore the impacts and challenges, and residents’ ideas on what would enable them to achieve greater financial resilience.
Findings suggest that rural Braintree is lovely place to live with residents enjoying the closeness to nature, peace and feelings of safety. Some villages are good at identifying needs, ideas and putting solutions into practice that support residents. Our participants also demonstrated that they are doing a lot already themselves to reduce spend and improve their financial circumstances.
However, budgets have always been tight and getting tighter and participants feel their current financial situation is unfair, not always in their control and causing them worry. Asking for help is seen as shameful; and there is a lack of knowledge of what support is available and lack of time to access it around work and family life. Driving or travel is essential and linked to other opportunities such as cheaper food and fuel, access to healthcare and higher paid jobs. The research reports can be viewed on the Essex Open Data platform.
This research is supporting discussions being had through the community engagement exercise Essex County Council are conducting. The exercise is exploring how we can reduce barriers to opportunities and services with partners and communities. If you are interested in being part of these events please contact Levellingup@essex.gov.uk.
Voluntary and Community Sector (VCS) Infrastructure
Over the last 12-18 months, Essex County Council has been working with a broad range of partners to undertake a system wide engagement of the current Voluntary and Community Sector landscape. Essex County Council is proposing a change in how it invests in Voluntary and Community Sector (VCS) Infrastructure from April 2024, and the Strengthening Communities Team, who are leading this review, have published a Prior Information Notice, known as a PIN, that is the first step in the process and seeks to notify the market in good time of the procurement exercise and open up engagement with potential providers in advance.
We hope you can take a look at the PIN and, if it is something you have an interest in, please come and join the team at the online Market Engagement Event planned for 18th July 2023. Details of how to request attendance can be found in the PIN – https://www.find-tender.service.gov.uk/Notice/017148-2023.
If you are a VCS organisation and have any queries, you can email Strengthening.Communities@essex.gov.uk, your question will be logged and answered during the Market Engagement Event.
If you are a Statutory Sector partner and would like more information or a discussion about this commission please email Strengthening.Communities@essex.gov.uk
News from Skills & Employability, and Sector Development
Essex businesses and employers invited to sign Green Skills Pledge
Show your commitment to delivering skills for a net-zero Essex. The Essex Green Skills Pledge is open to all employers, schools, colleges, training providers and anchor institutions in Greater Essex. It invites organisations to pledge to up to eight actions to demonstrate their commitment to green skills provision.
To thank organisations for pledging, they will receive an exclusive resource pack to help them achieve their green skills targets. They will also be sent marketing materials to promote their involvement.
Find out more about the Essex Green Skills Pledge
The second edition of the Essex Careers Magazine has launched
The Essex Careers Magazine offers advice, insights and guidance to all ages across Essex. After its successful first edition, the second issue is now live on the Essex Opportunities Portal and printed copies are available in schools, libraries, Job Centres and ACL centres.
The second edition focusses on careers in the health and social care sector, whilst also guiding readers on engineering, how to start a business and training opportunities in West Essex.
The magazine features articles from a fantastic range of partners and contributors, including Colchester Institute, East Suffolk and North Essex NHS Foundation Trust, Essex Police and more.
Read both editions of the Essex Careers Magazine on the Essex Opportunities Portal
Apprenticeship advice and support for your organisation
As young people across Essex leave school, college or university, many are thinking about their next steps. You could help by offering an apprenticeship! The Essex Apprenticeship Hub can provide tailored support to your organisation. This includes accessing funding to cover training costs, connecting you to training providers and helping to promote your vacancy.
Find out more and get in touch with our team of experts today
Support to help reduce your business waste
Do you want to support Essex with its net-zero transition? Cutting down your business waste could be the way to start!
Our short survey explores current practices and asks businesses what might motivate them to re-think their waste.
Responses will help us to offer new support and incentives to boost sustainability in your business.
Complete our short survey today
Check out the Carbon Cutting Essex app!
Discover top tips on actions that we can all take to fight against climate change
Tackling the global climate challenge has become an urgent priority for us all. From swapping our cars for walking and cycling, eating more plant-based food or reducing energy consumption in our buildings, there are so many small daily actions we can take through our lifestyles to protect the future of our planet. As well as supporting the local environment, many of these actions can also help us to save money on our bills.
This year, Essex celebrated the launch of a pioneering sustainability app. Designed for Essex County Council by Greenredeem, the Carbon Cutting Essex app is a fun way for us all to keep track of our carbon footprint, as well as broaden our knowledge on climate change through a range of activities, quizzes and bite-sized videos on the app.
Each month focuses on a different theme around climate action such as food choices, sustainable transport, energy and waste reduction. The app motivates positive actions through awarding points. These can be used to enter the Essex Prize Draw with a chance of winning prizes of up to £250 or donate to a good cause such as a charity or a school.
You can download the free app today on Google Play or the App Store.
New Interactive Council Tax Vulnerability Tool
Council tax arrears rose during the COVID-19 pandemic, with the Citizen’s Advice Bureau (2023) experiencing an 11% increase in queries specific to arrears from 2021 to 2022.
As the cost-of-living crisis escalates this trend is likely to re-emerge. Analysts from Essex County Council’s Data and Analytics team have been collaborating with finance colleagues across Essex public services to produce a vulnerability index that visualises the impact on council-tax collection rates across Essex. The insight shows communities on the Tendring coastline and areas of Basildon and Harlow have the highest vulnerability scores.
The interactive tool, available on Essex Open Data, was presented at the Pan-Essex group, which is a monthly meeting that has representation from all authorities across Essex. The tool will be used to support financial planning, identify priority areas for early engagement with residents, and to ensure council tax income collection is maximised so that Essex local authorities have sufficient financial resources to support the delivery of key frontline services.
Focusing on healthy people, places and lives
The Office for National Statistics’ Health Index for England is a new measure of the health of the nation. It provides a broad picture of health, including health outcomes, health-related behaviours and personal circumstances, and wider drivers of health that relate to the places where people live.
The Health Index provides a single value for health that can show how health changes over time. It can also be broken down to focus on specific topics to show the factors that influence these changes. It measures health at local authority, regional and national levels. It also enables comparison between geographic areas, health topics and combinations of the two over time.
The dashboard shows scores for three areas of health, known as domains, which are: Healthy People, Healthy Lives and Healthy Places, as well as sub domains, indicator values and underlying indicators for Essex and Greater Essex geographies.
The interactive Health Index Dashboard is available on Essex Open Data
Youth Vaping in Essex
Vaping among children and young people has become a concern nationally.
To inform our local actions, Essex County Council’s Public Health Team and Research & Citizen Insight Team recently conducted a research project to investigate youth vaping in Essex.
Our research is based on responses from more than 3,000 children and young people, nearly 900 parents and carers, and around 20 secondary schools, with insights on:
- Scale of youth vaping, and the culture, experiences, and activities around it
- Levels of knowledge and awareness around vaping, including potential health impacts
- What might work to change youth vaping behaviours, including what messages and communication routes might be best responded to
The full report can be found on Essex Open Data: https://data.essex.gov.uk/dataset/24qw8/essex-youth-vaping
We have a committed multi agency working group considering next steps. If you wish to share any thoughts on the findings or ideas on courses of action that we may want to consider, please feel free to contact us public.health@essex.gov.uk.
