Community Planning
Community Planning is defined as a process "by which the public services provided in the area of the local authority are provided and the planning of that provision takes place". (Local Government in Scotland Act 2003) Local authorities have a duty to initiate, maintain and facilitate this process and Scottish Ministers have a duty to promote and encourage the use of Community Planning.
A number of public sector organisations are statutory partners in Community Planning. These include the local authority, health board, fire, police, enterprise agency and transport partnership. In addition to the statutory partners, Community Planning Partnerships (CPPs) typically involve other public, voluntary, community and private sector partners.
Further information on how Community Planning works in practice is available on the Scottish Government website.
Community Planning and Single Outcome Agreements
In 2007, a Concordat between the Scottish Government and Local Government set out the terms of a new relationship - a key element of this is the development of Single Outcome Agreements. The Single Outcome Agreement is the means by which Community Planning Partnerships agree their strategic priorities for their local area and express those priorities as outcomes to be delivered by the partners, either individually or jointly, while showing how those outcomes should contribute to the Scottish Government's relevant National Outcomes. Through CPPs, local leaders work with communities, the third and private sectors to develop the long term vision for the area and work towards that vision.
Around half of the SOAs developed for 2008-9 involved the CPP and the 2009-10 SOAs have been developed with the full involvement of CPPs. While local government has the facilitation role in Community Planning, all partners have an important part to play and, as a minimum, statutory partners and other public bodies in the CPP must sign the SOA.
Current position:
- Updated SOA guidance was provided in October 2008;
- CPPs presented their draft SOAs to Scottish Government in February 2009;
- CPPs and Scottish Government agreed the SOAs in summer 2009; and
- The SOAs agreed in 2009 will run on a three year rolling basis, with annual reviews to reflect progress and changing circumstances, including political and financial contexts.
Our Single Outcome Agreements page has more information about SOAs.
Something missing from this page? If you know of any useful websites or resources that we haven't featured, let us know at listen@improvementservice.org.uk.
