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Better communities in Scotland: Closing the gap
Summary
1 Poverty and deprivation in Scotland tend to be concentrated in particular urban and rural areas, more so than in the rest of the United Kingdom. There are complicated causes for this and tackling them is a complicated and difficult task. We have had significant successes in some communities in the last 30 years but much more needs to be done if we are to close the gap between Scotland's disadvantaged areas and the rest of the country.
2 This document sets out how we - together with our partners in local government, other parts of the public sector, the private sector and voluntary and community groups - intend to turn round disadvantaged communities and create a better life for those who live in them.
3 In Chapter 1 we set out the two main parts of our strategy, which we expand on in the rest of the document.
- We must make core public services as effective as possible in deprived areas. They must be designed to meet the needs of people and delivered in ways that improve the quality of their lives.
- We must make sure that individuals and communities have the social capital - the skills, confidence, support networks and resources - to take advantage of and increase the opportunities open to them.
4 We believe that targeted regeneration initiatives are necessary to fill the gaps and 'top up' mainstream services, but we need to join up national, regional, and local priorities better. We believe that the community planning process provides this framework, and in Chapter 2 we set out how this would work. In Chapter 2 we also set out how we intend to improve the way we judge what is working and why, and to use that information so we can do better in future. We also discuss the importance of partnership working.
5 In Chapter 3 we say more about how we will work with others to improve the quality of services for people in deprived areas. This includes paying more attention to what services are meant to achieve, in terms of outcomes, the particular contribution of frontline staff, the important role that the private and voluntary and community sectors can make to community regeneration and the potential usefulness of neighbourhood management approaches.
6 The final chapter, Chapter 4 , sets out our action plan for delivering the strategy as well as how we will measure progress over time.
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