Cllr Steve Niblock said he was curious about the method used. He said the ward he represents was not in there and he wanted a map of all of Wirral made available to councillors.
Jane Morgan said it was in more detail in the needs assessment by super output area. They had drawn out comparison between the ten most and ten least deprived areas to show the disparity and pockets of deprivation.
The Chair, Cllr Johnston said he was happy to move to the recommendations. They would make a note of the report and required regular updates. There were two work streams it related to, working out of poverty & neighbourhood regeneration. He wanted to “keep on top of it”.
The Chair moved the meeting to a report on the European Social Fund. He asked for any questions and asked one of his own. He said if the IT system was found not to be fit for purposes would this put at risk the grants?
David Ball said Hanlon was complicated to use, but was a grant requirement of the funders. It didn’t put the grant at risk because they now understood how to use it and could give the information requested. They were looking at how to uncomplicate it and tackle performance.
The Chair said the performance on the intermediate labour market target was well below what it should be and required remedial work, was there a claw back risk? David Ball responded that clawback could only happen if they had spent the money and not delivered. The intermediate labour market project had had delays since the start however it had been accelerated significantly. There were a hundred to a hundred and twenty posts on offer with thirty-six to be filled over the next few weeks. They were trying to negotiate extensions with the funders which would enable them to meet the targets in a longer amount of time.