Councillors Kelly, Williams, E Devine, Glen, Henry, McCartin, M MacMillan, I McMillan, Andy Doig, Noon, Holmes and Harte.

Councillor M Macmillan, Convener, presided.

S Black, Chief Executive; A Russell Director of Finances & Resources; A McCann, Head of Communications, R Hollywood, Policy and Performance Manager, A Armstrong-Walter, Policy Lead (Tackling Poverty, Welfare Reform and Equalities) and Y Khan, Senior Policy Officer (all Chief Executive’s); M Dewar, Acting Head of Service (Children’s Services); O Reid, Interim Head of Public Protection (Community Resources); K Graham, Head of Corporate Governance, and L Belshaw, Democratic Services Manager (both Finance & Resources); S McFadden, Project Director, City Deal, B Walker, Depute Project Director, City Deal and R Cooper, Economic Development Manager (all Development & Housing Services); and D Leese, Chief Officer Designate, Renfrewshire Health and Social Care Partnership

Councillors Cameron and Nicolson

There were no declarations of interest intimated prior to the commencement of the meeting.

There was submitted a report by the Director of Development & Housing Services relative to progress on delivery of the Council’s commitments following the formal signing of the City Deal in August 2014. The report intimated that the City Deal would deliver investment of £1.13b across the Glasgow City region including £274m on infrastructure projects in the Renfrewshire area - Glasgow Airport investment area project, Clyde Waterfront and Renfrew Riverside project and the Airport Access project - together with additional investment in employment support through the labour market project which included Department for Works & Pensions (DWP) funding of £449,559.

The report outlined the City Deal and Renfrewshire’s governance arrangements. It was noted that the City Deal team had developed draft strategic business cases for the three infrastructure projects which had been submitted in draft to the Programme Management Office by the 31 March, 2015 deadline. The final versions of the strategic business cases would be submitted to this Board for approval prior to formal submission.

The Project Director and Depute Project Director, City Deal and the Economic Development Manager gave a presentation to the Board providing an overview of the City Deal programme, including governance arrangements, infrastructure and labour market projects.

DECIDED:

(a) That the progress made by the Council on establishing the governance and staffing structures to deliver the City Deal projects, together with the progress to date on development of the projects be noted; and

(b) That the allocation of DWP grant to the Council and the Council’s match funding contribution of £507,150 for the Working Matters programme from existing funding sources be noted.

There was submitted a report by the Chief Executive relative to the Council’s statutory duty to report progress on mainstreaming equality and equality outcomes. The report intimated the Council was required to report on its progress with mainstreaming equality, against its equality outcomes, employee information and gender pay gap information by April 2015. The Leadership Board had previously approved the Council's 12 equality outcomes at its meeting held on 17 April, 2013. It was noted that a wide range of activities and actions that had been undertaken across Renfrewshire to mainstream equalities and examples of these were highlighted.

The report also detailed the areas of focus for the next reporting period from April 2015 to April 2017.






DECIDED:

(a) That the progress documented within the report and appendix be noted:

(b) That the publication of the appendix be approved; and

(c) That further progress reports against the equality outcomes and mainstreaming the equality duty be submitted to future meetings of the Board.