Here are some notes from the Health Inequalities Pool meeting that took place on Thurs 10th April. Including info on a new report called from Placards to Partnerships, and State of the City Indicators.

The Health Inequalities Pool now has a new name, it is the Health and Wellbeing Network.

From Placards to partnership: the changing nature of community activism in Manchester, UK and Aotearoa, New Zealand
http://www.lancs.ac.uk/fass/projects/placing-vol-activism/docs/papers.htm
A new report from Lancaster University, looking at how campaigners in Mcr and other cities, are diversifying their campaigning styles, by working through structures like Manchester Partnership (http://www.manchesterpartnership.org.uk). If anybody reads this, please leave comments below, because I would be interested to hear if it is any good or not.

State of the City Indicators
Tim McMahon from Manchester Environment Network ( http://www.en4m.org.uk ) gave a really useful briefing about local and national indictors. Here are some brief notes:

LAA = Local Area Agreement: this is an agreement between the local authority and government. It is designed to integrate and streamline different sources of mainstream funding, which is then commissioned, in order to provide services in the city.

National Indicators: there are a range of National Indicators set by government. LAs like Mcr get to pick which of these indicators they wish to use to monitor the way the City is working.

State of the City Indicators: Thes are Mcr LAs own indicators. They include National Indicators, plus a load more which have been made up by the city.

There are 4 levels of State of the City indicators. There are definate oportunities for influencing change, by working through CN4M and Mcr Partnership structures, in order to create sustainability and local food indicators. Indicators do not however come associated with targets, but indicators can be used to influence change, by focussing people's attention on what's important.

Some indicators:

• There is a level 4 indicator about number of allotments in the City.
• There is also a national indicator about personal wellbeing.

The New Economics Foundation have been working on indicators (economies/currencies?) based around happyness and wellbeing, as a complimentary system to conventional economics.

There are no indicators about about mental health and wellbeing. This might be an area for the HELF Partnership to think about perhaps, and try and influence the adoption of a new level 4 indicator.

The Sustainable Communities Act has a Schedule which stresses the importance of local and organic food, and encourages LAs and communities to develop these. This is a useful 'tool' for fundraising, influencing local policy etc.

I am thinking of setting up a collaborative book project on this site, in order to try and map out how all this stuff works. Let me know if you think this might be of interest to you.