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Shaping Places for Wellbeing Programme

Read the testimonials below from Steering Group members from the seven Project Towns we worked with to see how our work has supported place-based decision-making.

What has been the overall impact of our Programme?

“The benefits that I’m seeing the programme bringing is bringing people together that wouldn’t perhaps originally work together so closely, and it’s helped to breakdown those silos across the town and it's really allowing us to implement the Place Principle a lot better, it’s much more effective. I think it’s given more oversight to the huge amount of work that’s ongoing in Alloa just now and given more decision makers more insight into place and why the Place & Wellbeing Outcomes are so key to the wellbeing of the people living there.”

Emma Fyvie, Senior Development Manager, Clackmannanshire Council

“The involvement of the Shaping Places for Wellbeing project has enabled us to take a more focused look at how these Active Travel initiatives could be better designed to maximise their impact on the identified priority groups and the opportunities to involve additional partners.”

Ann Campbell, Partnership & Development Manager, Dunoon Community Development Trust

How have our Place and Wellbeing Outcomes helped to support place-based work?

"The Shaping Places for Wellbeing Programme is a framework for collaboration and has been built into South Ayrshire Council forward plans. It's what the system change is... and the Place and Wellbeing Outcomes give a good framework and they are starting to have an influence from a strategic perspective."

Kevin Anderson, Service Lead, South Ayrshire Council

"Over the last year, our Public Health staff have been using the Place and Wellbeing Outcomes as a basis to respond to planning consultations and to work with local authority partners on place related strategy development processes. The Outcomes have provided an opportunity to systematically consider the complex problem of how the wider determinants of health impact on place, people and planet. It has enabled us to reinforce positive action as well as highlight areas to reconsider based on the potential impact on health and provide evidence-based recommendations. We have noted changes being made in line with our feedback and partners have informed us that the responses have been helpful to think differently and consider decisions from another perspective."

Fiona Smith, Health Improvement Lead, South Ayrshire Health & Social Care Partnership

“I would say closer to local groups, definitely got us closer with the community development trust and living well networks. I think it's actually made us a bit closer to services in the council as well... And by just having that community voice and empowerment and these Place and Wellbeing Outcomes having community at the centre, it's really helpful. It’s another string to the bow, and helps us to take a place-based approach around the identified things that came out of it, such as mental health and active travel.”

Ailie Law, Community Development Officer, Argyll and Bute Council

Place and Wellbeing Assessments

What has been the impact of carrying out a Place and Wellbeing Assessment?

“The Place & Wellbeing Assessment that we worked on for the Economic Strategy was a very valuable process and I would do it earlier when it comes to writing other plans or strategy documents. Going through the process helps you to look at things through fresh eyes, which is really useful as you get used to doing things in a certain way.”

Iain Ross, Economic Development Manager, South Lanarkshire Council

“Changes have been made to the strategy as a result of this work (HSCP Strategic Plan Assessment Report). I am confident they have enhanced the strategic position and the development of the associated delivery plan.”

Margaret-Jane Cardno, Chair of the Clydebank Steering Group, Head of Strategy and Transformation, West Dunbartonshire Health and Social Care Partnership

“The assessment report captured all discussions and was extremely helpful including other references and links that we can use in our review of our Local Policing Plan against the Place and Wellbeing Outcomes”

PC Laura Evans,
Partnership Officer, Argyll and Bute

“The Place & Wellbeing Assessment undertaken on the Fraserburgh Schools Merger provided an opportunity to have a detailed discussion, with all key partners, about how the plans have considered the local communities and the impact on the town of Fraserburgh. This discussion was valuable and it was clear to see how this process would be beneficial at the start of a project, as part of the consultation phase, to explore the intended and unintended, positive and negative consequences to communities. I feel undertaking this type of assessment at an early stage of a project, would help to speed up the processes and provide information that would be valuable to the completion of the Integrated Impact Assessments. The assessment provides a clear and replicable place-based structure to facilitate place-based decision-making.”

Maxine Booth, Quality Improvement Manager, Learning Estates, Education and Children’s Services, Aberdeenshire Council

“We’ve never had everyone around a table come together before to have a chat about us and our neighbourhood and about the things we are all passionate about.”

Lizzy McDonald, Healthy n Happy Community Development Trust and Burnhill Action Group

“The opportunity to collaborate as part of the assessments, with other colleagues in the council, colleagues in the health board and the third sector has been really useful to us in terms of evidence base and allowing a more collaborative approach. The discussions were very valuable, clearly we all face similar challenges across the public sector in trying to deliver some of these projects, but the ability to see where we could collaborate going forward was really useful.”

Jonathan Welch, Rural Growth Deal Programme Manager, Argyll and Bute Council

Shaping Places for Wellbeing Programme Data

Data has been a central focus of the Shaping Places for Wellbeing Programme since the Programme began, specifically data-led decision-making which impacts on place. Here’s what some of our Steering Group members said about how data has helped to support the work in our Project Towns.

“The data profile was just fantastic. It was just what we needed to allow us to make those decisions at a community planning level, to make physical changes to the geographical boundaries that we worked on and it allowed us to really have that data at our fingertips to say ‘this is why we’re making decisions to focus resources into certain areas.’ The data gave us license and the opportunity to do that in a strategic way.”.

Lesley Reid, Health Promotion Manager, NHS Ayrshire and Arran

“The report is insightful and powerful, and I think should be read (and acted upon) by anyone involved in delivering services to people in Alloa South and East in particular...I see a strong link between the quantitative data and the testimonies from lived experience that you have reflected in the report. I hope this report can be shared as widely as possible and is taken into account in key decision-making.”

Grant Baxter, Planning and Building Standards Team Leader, Clackmannanshire Council

How has our data related work helped to support our Steering Groups? (and specifically, when looking at funding applications?)

"What I would say is that it's added value to community development processes. We help with finding funding for groups so this is something that would help groups evidence their funding and when they're making funding applications, they can target it a little bit more effectively.”

Ailie Law, Community Development Officer, Argyll and Bute Council

“As a council, we are keen to take a data-led approach to funding. Being able to build in some of the health matrices and inequality data and take a place-based approach to our investment decisions, is really valuable to us as a council. Being able to capture some of the qualitative evidence is really important as well. Moving forward we will continue to embed a lot of this work in our growth deal projects and we will look to take a similar approach to other capital funding bids.”

Jonathan Welch, Rural Growth Deal Programme Manager, Argyll and Bute Council

If you are looking at place-based approaches, or if the Shaping Places for Wellbeing Programme sounds like something you would like to know more about, please contact Irene Beautyman, Place and Wellbeing Partnership Lead, below or follow us on X (Twitter) @place4wellbeing to keep up to date with all of our latest news

Irene Beautyman - Place and Wellbeing Partnership Lead

Phone: 07908 930763

Email: placeandwellbeing@improvementservice.org.uk