Agenda item

6.1       Jeanette McDiarmid, SBC Depute Chief Executive – People, advised of previous work that the Council had been undertaking in the Cheviot Area, which had included the Living Safely in the Home programme delivered with the Fire & Rescue Service to elderly people in their homes to prevent fires and falls.  There were now draft economic development and locality property plans for Cheviot.  Councillor Brown explained that by having a Locality Plan, communities could then be involved in prioritising actions for their own area.  Colin Banks, SBC Lead Officer for Localities, gave a presentation on the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015 as it related to Community Planning, focussing in particular on the Local Outcomes Improvement Plan (LOIP) and the Locality Plans.  These Plans were due to be published by 1 October 2017, with all needing to show a clear, evidence-based and robust strong understanding of local needs, circumstances, and aspirations of their local communities.  Details were given of the proposed structure and content for both the LOIP and the Locality Plans.  The Board considered the proposed structure and content to be a good start but this needed to be translated for communities so that they were connected in from the start, as at the moment there was a big disconnect from the centre to Area Forums and Community Councils.  Partners would contribute to Locality Plans  with collaborative actions from existing plans and any plans which were being refreshed to reflect the CPP priorities. The intention was that these Plans would be concise, simple documents.  However, it was vital that communities were involved in their development and that communities’ own ambitions were reflected otherwise these Plans may not succeed.

6.2       Colin Banks then advised of one issue with the legislation which placed a maximum population figure of 30,000 on a locality, but Eildon area population was 35,000.  Further consideration would be given to this but it was likely the Eildon Locality Plan would cover the whole area and not be split.  The draft LOIP and Locality Plan templates along with the timelines would be considered at a development day for the CPP Joint Delivery Team being held in December.  As part of consultation the aim was to use the Scottish Government’s “Place Standard – How Good is Our Place?” which was a tool to help evaluate the quality of a place (14 aspects, such as housing & community, social interaction, work & local economy, etc.) as well as helping to identify priorities.  Local community groups, the People’s Panel, Community Councils, etc. would all be invited to participate, including using on-line surveys, and if there was enough response from communities then they would be included in the Plans and would be a strong baseline for the future.  The value was about bringing communities together to allow them to take forward their own work.  While it was recognised that the timelines were not ideal, there was also a need to be pragmatic about getting the first iteration of Plans published by the October 2017 deadline; many pieces of work were already within partners’ plans so just needed to be brought together.  IT and connectivity, health and social care, and transport were likely common issues across all localities.  The Plans would be living documents and continually refreshed.

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