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Final Report of the Community Planning Task Force

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Preface

Community Planning provides a framework for shaping services around the needs of individuals and communities - challenging Community Planning partners to work effectively with each other and with their communities in moving towards a collective vision of wellbeing. It should also be seen as a long-term process, with its benefits best measured over many years rather than months. Although Community Planning has been happening for a number of years, the Local Government in Scotland Act 2003 and associated draft guidance, have now put Community Planning on a firm footing.

The Community Planning Task Force was set up in March 2001 by the Scottish Executive, to provide independent and authoritative advice on Community Planning issues. Now that the Task Force has reached the end of its two-year life, this is an appropriate time at which to take stock. One of the strengths of the Task Force has been to bring together people from a wide range of backgrounds and interests, both within and outwith its own membership and I have been struck by the degree of consensus on many of the Community Planning issues we, as a Task Force, have been considering.

As this Report makes clear the Task Force has, in its limited life, made good progress. However, major challenges remain, and our Report makes recommendations about what still needs to be done. I have been impressed by the success of Professor Alice Brown in getting Community Planning placed high on the political agenda and since taking over from her as Chair last year, I have been working with Task Force colleagues to build on this platform, so that Community Planning can make a real difference to the way services are run in Scotland.

Willie Rae

Chair, Community Planning Task Force

Community Planning Task Force: Main Achievements

Helping to shape legislation, associated guidance and advice

The Task Force has made significant contributions - through working groups, reports, workshops and documents - to the shaping of the Local Government in Scotland Act 2003 and to the continuing development of associated guidance and advice on Community Planning issues. It also presented oral and written evidence to the Local Government Committee of the Scottish Parliament that helped to influence the subsequent development of the Act.

Influencing key players

Meetings between the Task Force, Scottish Ministers and senior civil servants have helped Community Planning to become a central focus for various policies of the Scottish Executive, for example, in relation to community regeneration and health improvement. The Task Force has encouraged the Scottish Executive to ensure that departments make Community Planning their business and foster crosscutting approaches to policy development.

Learning from research

Research has been commissioned on behalf of the Task Force to help provide a firm evidence base on which to support the development of Community Planning. For example, "Getting Under the Skin of Community Planning" found that Community Planning means different things to different people and needs time and space in which to evolve. Other research has been commissioned on capacity building for Community Planning, partnership rationalisation and partnership toolkits (see other parts of this report).

Promoting good practice

The Task Force has been promoting good practice in Community Planning through seminars, workshops and through its own website. Those with an interest in Community Planning are encouraged to make full use of the website to share their own practices and learn from experience elsewhere.

Engaging with wider stakeholder communities

The Task Force has been committed to listening, learning, and sharing ideas with a wide range of stakeholders in the Community Planning process, which include the public, private, community and voluntary sectors. It has organised two national conferences and a series of regional seminars. The key messages coming from these can be accessed on: www.communityplanning.org.uk/news.html

Working in new ways

The Task Force has been able to work in ways that give it direct access to, and support from, the Scottish Executive and other key decision-makers. At the same time it has had the freedom and independence to express its own views and speak directly to Ministers. This has helped to underscore its credibility with all of its stakeholders. This approach also merits wider application to the good governance of Scotland.

Task Force Chair, Willie Rae, addressing the Conference

Community Planning: future challenges

Community Planning acting as a firm framework for joining up policies and priorities

The Task Force strongly believes that Community Planning offers an ideal mechanism for linking national and local priorities and developing an overarching vision for Scotland. The priorities that matter to most people in Scotland - health, education, crime, transport and jobs - and the crosscutting policies of sustainability and closing the opportunity gap are captured by the Scottish Executive's programme for government and feature in many community plans.

Placing communities at the heart of Community Planning

A key aim of Community Planning is to give people more influence and control over the circumstances in which they live. The challenge will be to develop approaches to Community Planning that put the needs and priorities of communities, including harder-to-reach communities, at the heart of the process. Approaches are likely to include the development of Community Planning at both localised and thematic levels by working effectively with community and voluntary organisations. It is at these levels that community engagement will be most meaningful and where the impact of Community Planning on services on the ground will be the most evident.

Going beyond the boundaries

Community Planning partnerships will need to make use of their powers to work with each other on issues that go beyond their boundaries, such as economic development, land use, transport, and environmental sustainability. This process will need to be managed in ways that join up strategic priorities at a more regional level and bring all of the key players on board.

Building organisational capacity

The capacity building study commissioned by the Task Force pointed to the need to address cultural and other barriers to partnership working. It suggested the development of integrated programmes to enhance the relevant attitudes, knowledge and skills of officers, elected and appointed members. Community Planning partnerships will want to make the best possible use of the Scottish Executive pump priming funding and their own match funding for capacity building in this regard.

Streamlining partnerships and other joint activity

Community Planning offers the challenge of simplifying or streamlining partnerships and the considerable amount of other joint activity already taking place. Benefits include reducing fragmentation and duplication of effort and removing unnecessary layers of management and bureaucracy by freeing up resources and supporting best value. Research by the Task Force will highlight issues relating to "partnership rationalisation" and the experience of this at the council-wide level and the need to drive this process forward at national and localised or neighbourhood levels.

Providing strategic leadership

In facilitating the Community Planning process, councils are responsible for providing strategic leadership while recognising the challenge of sharing power with their partners. Elected members, as key links between councils and their communities, should be given every encouragement, opportunity and support to demonstrate their own commitment to Community Planning and the roles they play in this. A similar consideration applies to appointed members of other partner bodies.

Involving the business community

Community Planning partnerships will want to develop links with the business community - which should be seen as very much part of the process, not an afterthought or bolt on. The business community has much to contribute to Community Planning by way of energy, expertise, and a focus on outcomes. There is already considerable experience of partnership working with the business community, for example, through area regeneration, local economic fora, skills training and other activities and Community Planning partnerships should build upon this work.

Task Force Conference, held in Dunfermline BLCC on 11th March

Commitment from professional bodies and trade unions

Professional bodies and trade unions have important roles to play in Community Planning, particularly capacity building, and should be expected to commit themselves to supporting Community Planning at an early stage. This support should include helping Community Planning partnerships develop new ways of working and overcome some of the key barriers to doing so.

Sharing information

To ensure that community needs are fully understood, services are planned effectively and performance monitored Community Planning partnerships will need to share information. The cultural and other barriers to sharing information will need to be addressed, for example, through data-sharing agreements. The Scottish Executive also has a significant role to play in addressing some of these barriers, for example, through its Scottish Data Sharing Working Group.

Building on early successes

Although the many benefits of Community Planning may not become evident for some years, partnerships can benefit greatly from building on one another's practices and early successes, in such areas as capacity building, partnership working, community engagement, information sharing, and Community Planning at the local or neighbourhood level. This can be done, for example, through seminars, networking, websites and other means.

Demonstrating that Community Planning can make a real difference

Community Planning will ultimately be judged on its capacity to make a difference to services and the overall quality of people's lives. There have been moves towards developing performance indicators that are meaningful to people, but there is also an urgent need to focus on a limited number of key priorities to make the number of indicators more manageable. This and other development work under way - provision of statistics at a local or neighbourhood level and the piloting of local outcome agreements - would be expected to support a performance management framework for Community Planning that allows a proper balance to be struck between national and local priorities. This framework should also streamline and join up existing audit and inspection processes.

Maintaining the momentum

While the Task Force has done much to champion Community Planning, a number of continuing or new tasks remain which will need to be taken forward beyond the current life of the Task Force. These are:

• keeping Community Planning high on the political agenda;
• forging robust links with Community Planning partnerships;
• building on the series of national and regional seminars;
• monitoring implementation of the legislation on Community Planning;
• providing advice and guidance on emerging Community Planning issues;
• enhancing links with existing networks with an interest in Community Planning issues;
• supporting capacity building for Community Planning;
• progressing development of the performance management framework for Community Planning; and
• promoting good practice, through website and other support work.

Once the Task Force has come to an end, a group drawn from the Task Force membership and other key interests will be appointed by the Scottish Executive, to take forward the above tasks over a limited term to ensure continuity of approach.

Task Force Conference, held in Dunfermline BLCC on 11th March

Members of Community Planning Task Force

Willie Rae, Chair (from 1 October 2002), Chief Constable, Strathclyde Police
Professor Alice Brown, Chair (up to 30 September. 2002), Vice-Principal, Edinburgh University.
Samantha Barber, Chief Executive, Scottish Business in the Community
Stuart Black, Director of Strengthening Communities, Highlands and Island Enterprise
Ann Clark, Head of Policy, Highland Council
Tom Divers, Chief Executive, Greater Glasgow Health Board
Leslie Evans, Head of Local Government Division, Scottish Executive
David Fletcher, Partnership Manager, Greater Easterhouse Partnership
Caroline Gardner, Deputy Auditor General, Audit Scotland
Jon Harris, Director of Policy and Legislation, Convention of Scottish Local Authorities
Chris Huxham, Director of Research, Strathclyde University Business School
Lynne Main, Voluntary Worker, Wester Hailes Representative Council
Stephen Maxwell, Assistant Director Development, Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations
Ros Micklem, Principal, Cardonald College
Stuart Nichol, former Regional Managing Director, Scottish Homes, now with Fife Council
Douglas Paterson, Chief Executive, Aberdeen City Council
David Pigott, Chief Executive, Lothian Primary NHS Trust
Selma Raham, former Director, Fife Racial Equality Council, now with Children in Scotland
Martyn Rendle, Business Director, Communities Scotland
Bill Speirs, General Secretary, Scottish Trades Union Congress
Douglas Sinclair, Chief Executive, Fife Council
John Thomson, Director of Strategy, Scottish Natural Heritage
Charlie Woods, Senior Director, Scottish Enterprise

Community Planning Task Force
March 2003