Community Planning is a process which helps public agencies to work together with the community to plan and deliver better services which make a real difference to people's lives.

The aims of Community Planning in Scotland are:

• making sure people and communities are genuinely engaged in the decisions made on public services which affect them; allied to
• a commitment from organisations to work together, not apart, in providing better public services.

There are two further key principles in addition to the two main aims outlined above:

• Community Planning as the key over-arching partnership framework helping to co-ordinate other initiatives and partnerships and where necessary acting to rationalise and simplify a cluttered landscape;
• the ability of Community Planning to improve the connection between national priorities and those at regional, local and neighbourhood levels.

Single Outcome Agreement

The concordat agreed in 2007 sets out the terms of a new relationship between the Scottish Government and local government, based on mutual respect and partnership. It underpins the funding to be provided to local government over the period 2008-09 to 2010-11.

As part of the concordat package each local authority would aim to reach a Single Outcome Agreement (SOA) with the Scottish Government at the earliest opportunity, based on the national outcomes and indicators, and, under a common framework, local outcomes to take account of local priorities. The SOA will cover all local government services in each local authority area as well as a significant range of the responsibilities of Community Planning Partnerships where local authorities have a significant part to play. The initial agreements would be with each of the 32 councils with the possibility of agreements with Community Planning Partnerships at some future date. SOAs will be expected to be in place across all councils during 2008-09.

Read more about Community Planning in the About Us section and in the Document Library and check here for the latest documents added to the library.