Sustainable Community Strategies are developed and written by Local Strategic Partnerships. These are often led by a member of staff from the local authority who is appointed to assist the Local Strategic parternship. There is a legal obligation on councils to prepare these under Part I of the Local Government Act 2000 which places a duty on local authorities to prepare 'community strategies', for promoting or improving the economic, social and environmental well-being of their areas, and contributing to the achievement of sustainable development in the UK. It also gives authorities broad new powers to improve and promote local well-being as a means of helping them to implement those strategies.
Local Strategic partnerships, (LSPs) may include a myriad of members, representatives from community groups, other public bodies such as Health Boards, Fire and Police, other local authorities, neighbouring authorities and single tier councils, possibly from the regional government office and your own local authority. The LSP consults with the community and “writes” the Sustainable Community Strategy. There is usually a vision, supported by a set of values or themes, followed by a set of aims, objectives or priorities.
These are set by the Department for Communities and Local Government who produce guidance for preparing Sustainable Community Strategies.
Any community strategy must have four key components:
- a long-term vision for the area focusing on the outcomes that are to be achieved;
- an action plan identifying shorter-term priorities and activities that will contribute to the achievement of long-term outcomes;
- a shared commitment to implement the action plan and proposals for doing so;
- arrangements for monitoring the implementation of the action plan, for periodically reviewing the community strategy, and for reporting progress to local communities.
Under the broad heading of the LSP, there will be sub groups working on the delivery of each of the main themes. They often produce their own strategy for the delivery of these themes, so there may be a strategy on Crime and disorder, if this is one of the main themes from the Sustainable Community Strategy. You can normally find a reference to your local community Strategy in your Council’s web site.
Getting onto these sub groups, especially those delivering Health and reductions in crime, give you an opportunity to shape current and future strategies, and to make the role of sport central to the delivery of these aims. It also means that you stay in touch with how some of your user groups may be trying to ensure that their own activities are engaged at this fairly high level of planning.
More
|
