Pennine and Lancashire consortium of local authorities Year 2 Q2 update

The Childhood Obesity Trailblazer Programme is funded by the Department and Health and Social Care and administered by the Local Government Association. Public Health England also providing expert support and advice. Pennine Lancashire Consortium of Local Authorities plan to test their planning powers to restrict food retailers that do not offer healthier options and to test a range of levers to incentivise them to improve their offer.


Communications

  • Regular bulletins have been shared with the subscription list and on social media
  • Instagram account has been set up
  • Good levels of interaction on Twitter
  • Regular podcasts are being published

Elected Members/System Leadership

  • Eight successful virtual Health and Wellbeing Forum meetings with elected members from across the footprint
  • Online ‘Health and Wellbeing’ learning and development module has been launched The district health and wellbeing infographics have also been completed and we now progressing with an ‘assets and opportunities’ version with input from district leads. The information for the ‘Healthy Weight’ learning and development module has been compiled and is now with the design team
  • Have developed an online password protected portal for the elected members to access. This will host the learning and development module as well as other supporting resources
  • Developing a virtual elected member physical activity challenge with the Together and Active Future team
  • Led a webinar on Systems leadership sharing insights from the team

Planning

  • Deep dive work is complete
  • Continued to work with a public health colleague at Blackburn with Darwen Council to pull together the data for the planning evidence base. We are using MapInfo to overlay data and to provide districts with detailed information on childhood overweight/obesity and a variety of data including hot food takeaways and convenience stores, greenspace and opportunities for physical activity, and food growing
  • Have drafted a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) which will be an overarching approach to tackling obesity and improving health and wellbeing across the Pennine Lancashire footprint
  • Working closely with Pendle Borough Council (planning and policy leads) to support their local plan consultation. Funding has been allocated to develop a health and wellbeing video to support the consultation
  • Working with Blackburn with Darwen council to support the youth engagement element of the local plan consultation
  • Recipe4Health/Business Incentives
  • Have gathered data from the pilot sites with our new menu analysis tool
  • Held a number of meetings with JustEat who have provided a list of businesses to engage with on the Recipe4Health scheme
  • Have progressed the portion size guidance element of this work, considering an approach which focusses on food waste

Social movement

  • The ‘Great Big Pan Challenge’ was a success, with a good level of social media engagement. This has been a useful tool to raise awareness of the Healthier Place Healthier Future programme. The toolkit can be downloaded
  • Have developed activity packs for those young people who have limited access to the internet.
  • We have developed a number of online learning modules based on four key themes; 4-7 year olds, sugar and healthy swaps; 8-12 year olds, food waste; 13-17 year olds, junk food marketing; and all ages, rubbish, plastic and the environment.
  • We hosted a virtual debate on the Government’s plans to introduce a 9pm watershed on HFSS products with young people
  • We have commenced with the work to recreate #GetsHangry campaigns across the footprint. We will also be working closely with local partners and a youth ambassador from the #DarwenGetsHangry campaign. Once the Hyndburn and Burnley campaigns are established a toolkit will be produced to support other areas of Pennine Lancashire to create a campaign

Learnings

  • There is a lot of scope for virtual engagement – with elected members, planners and communities
  • COVID-19 may present some opportunities for improved health and community cohesion moving forwards
  • Linking in with other programmes across Pennine Lancashire (Together an Active Future, Holiday Activity Fund, Blackburn with Darwen’s Food Resilience Alliance) has supported a number of the programme objectives
  • The planning white paper could have implications for the programme
  • The planning deep dive was a huge piece of work, made more difficult by different planning portals – some much more difficult to navigate than others
  • Trawling through planning applications takes a long time; strong relationships with planners may help this process
  • Democratic Services leads are a rich source of information on elected members and their development. 

Challenges

  • Capacity continues to be an issue.
  • The amount of time required to develop relationships with Elected Members continues to be more than first anticipate
  • Engagement varies between districts
  • Capacity in Councils due to the COVID-19 response will remain an issue for some time to come
  • The COVID-19 pandemic has led to increased workload for environmental health officers within district councils, it is therefore difficult to engage with them on the Recipe4Health lever currently
  • Planning White Paper poses an issue around supporting Councils with Local Plan making and developing Supplementary Planning Documents to restrict A5s.  The deep dive will hopefully bring some evidence to support the need for planning restrictions and we will continue to watch and wait for the outcome of the consultation.

Next steps

  • Rollout the online learning and development resources and infographics with elected members
  • Compete the healthy weight module
  • Work with Together an Active Future to launch a physical activity challenge
  • Launch the elected member portal
  • Finalise and disseminate the deep dive, engage with colleagues on the best way to present the data
  • Complete and support authorities to adopt the Memorandum of Understanding
  • Test the revised draft of the Recipe 4 Health award with businesses
  • Continue to push forward on the social movement
  • Share and review district action plans