Agenda item

Consider proposals from Berwickshire Area Partnership Review Sub-Group on the Community Fund and Area Partnership.  (Paper to follow)

4.1       With reference to paragraph 4 of the Minute of 3 December 2021, copies of the findings and proposals from the Berwickshire Area Partnership Review Sub-Group had been circulated.  The Chairman of the Review Sub-Group, Mr Keith Dickinson, gave a presentation on the work of the Sub-Group, thanking the members of the Group for their work and effort in considering a number of issues.  The Group had met on several occasions during January and February 2021.  With reference to the future of the Area Partnership, the Group favoured the Partnership continuing as a Council committee and was content with the current role, remit and purpose of the Area Partnership as it related to the development, implementation and monitoring of the Berwickshire Locality Plan and Action Plan; and the delivery of the Berwickshire Community Fund.  However, in the future, significant modifications to the working/operation characteristics of the Berwickshire Area Partnership would be required to ensure that the core functionality of the Partnership was discharged in a more effective and participatory manner.  A key activity of the Partnership related to how the Berwickshire Locality Plan was developed and monitored.  The Group believed that the current Partnership model was rather unwieldy, lacked focus and failed to engage with many communities.  Discussions in the Group had highlighted how planning at a more local “place” level was seen to be more relevant and would attract greater engagement within communities, and the Group therefore proposed a model of “bottom up” planning from several/many communities.  It was recognised that more needed to be done to collate and review existing community plans, bring “place” plans together into a coherent Locality Plan, and regularly monitor all plans.  In order to achieve this, it would likely be necessary to undertake substantial capacity building within communities.  Good practice already existed throughout Berwickshire, but further efforts would be required to share this experience and operate more effectively as a Partnership. 

4.2       With regard to the best way forward for the Community Fund, the Group favoured initially (in line with recommendations of the Scottish Community Development Centre report to Scottish Borders Council in early 2020) that no changes be made to the grants for Community Councils, Village Halls and local Festivals.  The key outcome from further discussions in the Group was that substantial benefit would derive from a change in the criteria and decision-making processes associated with the Community Fund.  It was proposed that a Sub-Committee of the Area Partnership be set up with full delegated powers to undertake the assessment of applications and make awards.  All applications to the Community Fund wold be dealt with through a single process, to ensure rigour, rationale and uniformity in the assessment of applications.  The proposed 10 person Sub-Committee would be drawn from the membership of the Area Partnership and would comprise a combination of experience, representation and “new blood”.  While allowing flexibility, it was envisaged that membership would include 3 SBC Elected Members, with an open recruitment process for the remaining members.  In general, the Group felt that Area Partnership meetings had yet to realise the level of community engagement and involvement that was originally envisaged.  The term “partnership” implied a level of equality between parties and participation in the management of the business and therefore a greater involvement in agenda setting and facilitation of meetings was proposed.  In addition, the Group favoured the introduction of a rotating Chair.  While a committee of Scottish Borders Council, and therefore for Council to appoint the Chair, the view of the Area Partnership prior to the appointment of a Chair should be sought.  If all this was taken forward then the Group considered this would give confidence that the Area Partnership could work in a more effective way in future.  The Chairman thanked Mr Dickinson and the Review Sub-Group for all their hard work. 

4.3       Comments were then received from the meeting attendees:

·         Fantastic piece of work; the role of the Chair or a Facilitator was about empowering and enabling but keeping the focus on the purpose of the meeting.

·         The Area Partnership was about people having control and participating.

·         A clear role for SBC officers in the proposed Sub-Committee; the Sub-Committee would be accountable to the Area Partnership.

·         The Sub-Committee would make the decisions on awards of grants from the Community Fund and advise the Area Partnership accordingly.

·         Area Partnership would have an annual discussion on how well the process was working.

·         Consideration would need to be given to widen participation and involve communities; if the business of the Area Partnership was interesting and valuable, with good decisions, then people would participate.  If the meetings were just talking shops then it would not work.  There should be a group looking at agenda items. 

·         When discussing greater community engagement the Review Sub-Group recognised the amount of work happening at a very local level and this could feed in to the Locality Plan and the wider Borders Community Plan e.g. Eyemouth Plan. 

·         There were some excellent examples of community place planning; Heart for Duns group was working with Duns Community Council to take forward planning for the local environment and wanted to pilot that model if successful and roll it out further in support of local communities.

DECISION

AGREED to support the recommendations of the Review Sub-Group:

(a)     the continuation of the Area Partnership as a Council committee;

(b)     the continuation of the current role, remit and purpose of Area Partnerships;

(c)     the development of a model of bottom-up community planning, assisted by appropriate capacity building and the sharing of good practice;

(d)     the retention of the existing Community Councils, Village Halls and Local Festivals grant schemes;

(e)     the creation of a Sub-Committee of the Area Partnership – the Berwickshire Community Fund Assessment Group – with full delegated powers to undertake the assessment of applications and subsequently make awards;

(f)      the introduction of an Area Partnership sub-group with responsibility for setting and facilitating future meeting topics; and

(g)     the request that the Council sought the views of the Berwickshire Area Partnership prior to the appointment of the Chair.