Community Engagement 12pt

2008-2012

Involving Communities Community Engagement Strategy (incorporating WDC Decentralisation Scheme) and Consultation Strategy

Involving Communities 2008 - 2012

foreword by Iain Robertson, Leader of West Dunbartonshire Council

WDC Community Engagement and Consultation Strategies Our Community Engagement and Consultation Strategies display the Council’s strong commitment to listening to citizens’ views in the development of our policies and services. They also underline our commitment to being a listening employer.

The Council uses a wide range of techniques to gain the views of our diverse communities. Wherever possible we work along with other public sector partners and partner organisations to involve the citizens of West Dunbartonshire.

These strategies have been developed with input from the community, from a range of officers, and also from Elected Members through the Community Participation Committee.

Our Community Engagement Strategy is also the Council’s Decentralisation Scheme. It sets out our wider approaches to Community Engagement. The Consultation Strategy focuses on the coordination of consultation and promotion of best practice as part of the wider engagement processes. The implementation of these Strategies will achieve several benefits including:

• setting a consistent standard for

engagement and working in partnership

• improving the co-ordination, prioritisation and forward planning of consultation within the Council and with our community planning partners

• providing a comprehensive record of our consultation activity for reporting and for planning purposes

• supporting employees to use the best

practice in a wide range of consultation and engagement activity.

We will continue to improve our performance as a listening Council.

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Involving Communities contents page

Community Engagement Strategy incorporating West Dunbartonshire Council Decentralisation Scheme 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 What is Community Engagement? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 The Purpose of Community Engagement . . . . . . . 7 Our Principles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Our Aims and Objectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Where does Consultation Fit In? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Development of Community Planning . . . . . . . . . . 9 Activities, Roles and Responsibilities . . . . . . . . . 10 Capacity and Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Community Engagement Structures/ Mechanisms and Representative Groups . . . . . . 12 Voluntary Sector . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Current Activity. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 Best Practice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Success Indicators – Monitoring and Evaluation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

Consultation Strategy 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

Consultation – a Definition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 Why Consult? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 What the Consultation Strategy will do . . . . . . . . 18 Our Principles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Including People . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 Consulting with our Employees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 Working with our Partners . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 Where are we currently? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 Where do we want to be? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 How will we achieve this? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 Monitoring and Evaluation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

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West Dunbartonshire Council Community Engagement Strategy 1 Introduction

2 Background

West Dunbartonshire’s approaches to community engagement are set out in this strategy. The strategy also acts as the Council’s Decentralisation Scheme.

The context in which we approach community engagement is changing and broadening. Developments in our approaches, underpinned by changes in local government legislation mean that partnership working is key to all our activities. We must organise our community engagement processes to respond to this. The development of community planning structures and co-ordination of partner community engagement mechanisms are key factors in planning our approaches to community engagement. A West Dunbartonshire wide Community Engagement Strategy is required which:

• builds on the best of current community engagement activity

• co-ordinates activity

• identifies roles and responsibilities

• sets out mutually agreed processes, structures and mechanisms

• makes the best use of the available community development resources

• allows us to review progress and

outcomes in a consistent and objective way.

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West Dunbartonshire Council Community Engagement Strategy

‘ Developing and sustaining a working relationship between one or more public body and one or more community group, to help them both to understand and act on the needs or issues that the community experiences’. 3 What is Community Engagement? Effective community engagement involves an on-going dialogue with a wide range of stakeholders within our communities which informs our practices and service delivery. The National Standards for Community Engagement define the process as:

'Developing and sustaining a working relationship between one or more public body and one or more community group, to help them both to understand and act on the needs or issues that the community experiences'. Engagement can also be with individuals in communities (e.g. through mechanisms like the Citizens’ Panel). For this to work effectively essential elements are:

• A range of involvement mechanisms

appropriate to different people and differing needs within our communities

• Support to build community capacity

• Clarity about roles and responsibilities • Good links between community

engagement structures/mechanisms and decision-making structures (with roles mutually agreed and understood)

4 The Purpose of Community Engagement Effective community engagement should result in: • Enhanced local democracy and accountability • Closer communication • Public participation

• Joint ownership of problems and solutions

• Better service delivery and policy making

In summary, community engagement enables the exchange of information and knowledge between public service providers and the communities they serve. When carried out well it should lead to better informed decision making and result in policies and services which better reflect the needs of the people who are affected by them or use them. It should also strengthen relationships so people can work together to improve local communities and increase opportunities for their residents. In addition, as public service providers, we must be able to evidence the outcomes of our community engagement activity.

The aim is for a Community Engagement Strategy which provides clarity on approaches and priorities and enables partners to co-ordinate resources and activity.

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‘ To support and enable all communities to have meaningful participation in shaping the policies which affect them and services which they use, and work together with communities to improve the quality of life in West Dunbartonshire’.

5 Our Principles

6 Our Aims and Objectives

The principles we follow in relation to Community Engagement are mirrored in the Council’s Values as set out the Corporate Plan. Partnership Working is a key value and the following values also underlie our approaches

The aims of the Community Engagement Strategy are straightforward:

• Putting Customers First

• Communication and Consultation • Openness and Accountability • Equal Opportunities

• Continuous Improvement • Sustainability

In addition we strive to embed good practice in working with our communities and we have a number of shared partner resources to support this, set out in the best practice training section of this Strategy.

“To support and enable all communities to have meaningful participation in shaping the policies which affect them and services which they use, and work together with communities to improve the quality of life in West Dunbartonshire”. The objectives to achieve this include:

• Develop a range of opportunities to enable

communities to engage in a range of ways (accessible to the fullest range of people)

• Clearly publicise these opportunities in appropriate ways

• Provide accessible information about

Council/partner services and relevant issues

• Support community capacity by

supporting the development of representative groups and encouraging networking between them

• Make specific arrangements to ensure

the involvement of excluded and minority groups

• Work in partnership with the community and voluntary sector

7 Where does consultation fit in? Consultation is an important aspect of the wider process of community engagement. The Council’s Consultation Strategy, included in this document, sets out how we propose to co-ordinate consultation and promote best practice in our activity.

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West Dunbartonshire Council Community Engagement Strategy

8 Development of Community Planning The Scottish Government ‘s approach to Community Planning aims to enable community planning resources to be directed in a more flexible way, suitable to local needs. Given the wide scope of Community Planning, and the close match between the Community Plan and partner plan objectives including the WDC corporate plan, all partners are involved. The development of the Single Outcome Agreement approach now provides an even greater focus for joint planning processes.

During 2008 community planning engagement and governance structures are under review. There is an opportunity to develop meaningful engagement structures which are able to reflect local views and issues and feed into the wider West Dunbartonshire perspective through appropriate mechanisms. It is important in the development to ensure that engagement mechanisms work in harmony and to avoid duplication and subsequent ‘overload’ on active members of our community.

In the development of structures we must also be clear about mutual roles and responsibilities and links with decision making.

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‘ To ensure best use of resources and avoid duplication it is important to establish clarity about roles and responsibilities and to review arrangements regularly and develop joint approaches where possible’. 9 Activities, Roles and Responsibilities

10 Capacity and Resources

The key partner agencies in relation to community planning engagement structures include West Dunbartonshire Council, West Dunbartonshire Community Health Partnership, Strathclyde Police and Strathclyde Fire and Rescue, West Dunbartonshire Council for Voluntary Service, Scottish Enterprise, Strathclyde Passenger Transport and Jobcentre Plus. Partner organisations’ individual community engagement arrangements differ in scope and in the way they are organised.

Building community capacity is essential for effective community engagement. This requires a number of elements:

Community Development and other staff in partner organisations already contribute to joint working in many circumstances. To ensure best use of resources and avoid duplication it is important to establish clarity about roles and responsibilities and to review arrangements regularly and develop joint approaches where possible.

• Appropriately trained and qualified staff to support community development

• Administrative support

• Wider training and awareness raising to support good practice

• Publicity and communication materials including technical backup for website communication

While partners currently have their own arrangements for community engagement, and these vary in extent and nature, it makes sense to use community planning resources to co-ordinate and strengthen processes. This can be done particularly effectively in the areas of:

• community training

• supporting minorities

• information provision and • good practice guidance.

Information technology is a key tool in this.

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West Dunbartonshire Council Community Engagement Strategy

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11 Community Engagement Structures/Mechanisms and Representative Groups Structures and mechanisms will of necessity change and develop over time. However we are able to outline some key stakeholder groups in our relationships with communities. These include: Community Councils Tenants’ & Residents Groups and Associations Seniors Forums Carers Forums Disability Forums Access Panel Mental Health Forum Minority Ethnic Groups Youth Forums Pupil Councils Learners Forums Lone parent groups

These groupings have a very direct relationship with the key themes in the Community Plan – although many other groups also have an interest.

Community Councils Community Councils have a statutory position in relation to planning and have rights in relation to information and notification of planning applications. They also have a wider role in raising issues on behalf of their communities. The Scottish Government agenda for Community Councils outlines a specific role for community councils in community engagement.

Community councils in West Dunbartonshire have administrative liaison support and receive grant funding.

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Strengthening support to community councils could potentially enhance their role by:

• increasing the number of community councils

• widening their membership to fully reflect the diversity of the general population

• supporting a pro-active approach in

informing local people and representing a range of local views

Tenants’ & Residents’ Groups Council tenants have a statutory right to be consulted on matters relating to the provision of housing and rent setting. Group representing tenants and residents are also regularly involved in wider community engagement issues. The number of Council tenants has reduced in recent years due to ‘Right to Buy’ and transfer of housing stock to housing associations. There has been a decline in the number of Tenants and Residents groups over a period of time and the reasons for this require further investigation as a basis for establishing future support needs.

Other representative groups A range of representative groups exists in West Dunbartonshire and the level of support to them varies. Many receive support through Council service departments in relation to their area of operation. As with other groupings, a partnership approach to meeting support needs is likely to be the most effective mechanism.

West Dunbartonshire Council Community Engagement Strategy

‘ The Council and its partner agencies provide a range of support to groups on funding applications and carry out monitoring and evaluation in relation to funded groups’. 12 Voluntary Sector Ensuring inclusion: Supporting minorities in our communities There are a number of people within our communities who require a range of support to enable effective community engagement e.g. black and minority ethnic community members, people with disabilities, lesbian, bi-sexual, gay and transgender people. A partnership approach has potential to ensure the best use of resources to support minority groups.

A co-ordinated approach Analysis of all existing community support will help establish the basis for better coordinated community support provision, embedding consistent best practice and making most effective use of resources.

Recognising the valuable contribution of the Voluntary Sector, we have developed a Joint Voluntary Policy, adopted by Community Planning Partners via the Board. The Joint Policy sets out the framework for best practice approaches in working with volunteers and voluntary and community groups. The Policy is supported by Guidance (referred to in the Best Practice Training section). Developing effective monitoring and evaluation processes is essential to continuous improvement in this area and this will be carried out via the West Dunbartonshire Council for Voluntary Service Annual Audit. Funding Working in a way which maximises the effective use of the funding available is essential.

A Funding Unit now exists to advise on funding for larger scale, strategic projects and to contribute to the development of large scale funding applications. It also signposts enquirers to other sources of support as appropriate.

West Dunbartonshire Council for Voluntary Service is a key source of funding advice to groups in West Dunbartonshire.

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‘ A range of involvement mechanisms appropriate to different people and different needs within our community’. 13 Current Activity at 2008 Review of Council Grants The Council and its partner agencies provide a range of support to groups on funding applications and carry out monitoring and evaluation in relation to funded groups.

A review of grant processes has been carried out. It has identified the need for separate strands of funding, separating out longer term commitments for recognised service providers such as Citizens’ Advice Bureaux.

Revised criteria for local grants will ensure that there is a strong link between groups funded and the community plan and WDC corporate plan objectives (reflected in the Strategic Outcome Agreement). Important principles are:

• Funding processes should be open and transparent

• There should be clear written guidance in plain English • Funding criteria should link clearly to the stated aims and objectives of the Council’s corporate plan, the community plan objectives • To ensure sustainable cash flows

• All groups in receipt of funding should be properly constituted (other than for start up funding) • Everyone involved should be aware of and follow the necessary accounting rules and practices

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• Monitoring and evaluation should be proportionate to the amount of funding.

Community Participation Committee The Community Participation Committee (CPC) is the key committee for involving the community in council decision-making. It provides the opportunity to influence how the Council delivers services and develops the policies that affect the community. It also provides information about Council services and policies. Its membership is composed of elected members and community representatives from a wide range of representative groups. Its function will be kept under review in relation to other developing community planning community engagement mechanisms. Community Group Database There is currently a database of community groups held within the Council’s Policy Unit, within Chief Executive’s Service and used for communicating with groups on relevant issues. There is potential in the longer term for developing the community planning partner community database.

West Dunbartonshire Citizens’ Panel Over 1000 residents of West Dunbartonshire have signed up to our Citizens’ Panel. The Panel is run on a partnership basis and funded by the Partnership. It is administered by a consultant and co-ordinated by a partner Steering Group. It co-ordinates partner survey and focus group activity around corporate and community planning themes, and will be used in future in relation to relevant aspects of our Single Outcome Agreement. It is an important way of reaching a wider group of citizens.

West Dunbartonshire Council Community Engagement Strategy

West Dunbartonshire Community Day This annual event is led by WDC with input from a wide range of community planning partners. It is a valuable way of encouraging groups and partner agencies to network with one another. It reaches the public, making them aware of local activities and services, consulting with them and providing information. West Dunbartonshire News This paper for local residents is used to convey information about a wide range of relevant issues for local people – predominantly Council led and funded, but including regular community planning news features funded through community planning budget. Budget Consultation Public involvement in budget consultation currently takes the form of providing information and inviting feedback through public meetings prior to the Council Tax setting.

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West Dunbartonshire Council Community Engagement Strategy

14 Best Practice

15 Success indicators – Monitoring and Evaluation

A great deal of work has been done to develop and support best practice approaches to working with the community. Developments include:

An essential aspect of an effective community engagement strategy is the development of indicators and measures which tell us how well we are doing and how we can improve. Indicators are incorporated in the Chief Executive’s Service Action Plan.

• Implementing the National Standards for Community Engagement – training and awareness raising sessions

• Voluntary policy guidance – two sets of guidance – one for supporting volunteers and one for working with voluntary groups

Progress will be reported annually to the Community Participation Committee and Community Planning Partnership Board.

• Communicating Effectively – guidance on communicating with people from ethnic minorities and with people who have a hearing or visual impairment, or who have learning difficulties. All the above have been adopted as best practice guidance by the Council and its Community Planning Partners.

Awareness raising training has been developed for workers in relation to the local and national standards and the Joint Voluntary Policy guidance. Inspire Community Training Inspire provides a partner co-ordinated training programme with training tailored to the requirements of individuals and groups in the community. This represents a good practice model with efficient use of partner resources.

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West Dunbartonshire Council Consultation Strategy 1 Consultation – a Definition “Consultation is the dynamic process of dialogue between individuals or groups, based upon a genuine exchange of views, and normally with the objective of influencing decisions, policies or programmes of action”.

Consultation is an important aspect of the wider process of Community Engagement. The Consultation Strategy supports the Council’s wider Community Engagement Strategy.

2 Why Consult? The Local Government in Scotland Act 2003, sets out the framework for Community Planning and Best Value. Responsiveness and Consultation are key characteristics of Best Value and central to the Community Planning process. Providing high quality, best value services is one of the Council’s priorities. Within this, Engaging with our Stakeholders, Engaging Children and Young People in the democratic decision making process and Developing our Employees are important strands.

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We consult in relation to:

• Statutory requirements e.g. Decentralisation, Housing, aspects of Education

• Service planning (Best Value Review/ Public Service Improvement Framework) • Quality Schemes e.g. Chartermark, Investors in People

The fundamental reason for all this is to ensure that service delivery and policy development are based on a sound knowledge of what our stakeholders need and want. Effective consultation contributes to better policy development and leads to better and more efficient service delivery.

Consultation contributes to good customer service and the Consultation Strategy supports the aims of the Council’s Customer First Strategy.

Elected Members, as key decisionmakers, have an important role in ensuring that we respond and listen to what people tell us when we consult. The illustration opposite shows the central relationship of consultation to all our activity as a Council.

West Dunbartonshire Council Consultation Strategy

Policy Development Integrated Impact Assessment

Statutory Requirements

Consultation – a Central Role Performance Management

Council Values and Vision Consultation

Quality Schemes

Customer First

Service Planning

Best Value Reviews/Public Service Improvement Framework

3 What the Consultation Strategy will do • Set the context for effective consultation with the people of West Dunbartonshire and other stakeholders in Council services including our employees, taking forward the consultation aspects of the wider Community Engagement Strategy • Lay out our approach to co-ordinating consultation within West Dunbartonshire Council and with our partners, and establish consultation as a priority issue.

• Provide clear guidance to all West Dunbartonshire Council staff and elected members.

4 Our Principles • Consultation which is honest, open, and two-way.

• Equal access – everyone who wishes to being able to contribute to consultations. • Good information and communication – supporting employees to achieve good standards.

• Providing consultees with realistic information about the likely impact of consultation. • Realistic timescales for consultation (where these matters are within our control).

• Responsiveness - using the results of consultations to inform the development of policies and services. • Development of plans for consultation (both within the Council and with our partners) – taking in prioritisation and co-ordination issues (and using existing information before embarking on new consultations).

• Providing feedback on all consultation – both on what people have told us and how we have responded to it. • Sharing information with service users, partners and other stakeholders.

• Regularly assessing stakeholder needs.

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5 Including People

6 Consulting with our Employees

In all our approaches to consultation we will do our best to ensure that everyone who wishes to can take part. We will give special consideration to minority groups and to anyone whose voice is not easily heard.

We are committed to engaging with our employees to involve them in developing and improving our services, and building positive working relationships. It’s important we demonstrate a consultative management style which encourages the feedback and contribution of our people through two-way communication and sharing information.

We will encourage and support employees to follow the guidance contained in “ Communicating Effectively”, the Council’s Guide to communicating with people from ethnic minorities and with people who have a hearing or visual impairment, or who have learning difficulties.

We will use our Integrated Impact Assessment process to help assess all equality issues within service planning and consultation.

Work which contributes to this will be carried out through: • The development of an internal communications strategy and action plan • A revised Dignity at Work Policy

• An action plan to address the recommendations of the 07-08 employee staff survey • Commitment to regular staff surveys and associated follow up

This work will help to embed good practice in consulting with and involving employees.

7 Working with our Partners Partnership working is fundamental to effective local service delivery. It makes sense to consult jointly where appropriate. Through the Community Planning Partnership, we will work to refine these processes. Our partner funded Citizens’ Panel is a key starting point.

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West Dunbartonshire Council Consultation Strategy

West Dunbartonshire Citizens’ Panel Following on from a long standing panel run by West Dunbartonshire Council (WDC), West Dunbartonshire Community Planning Partners are working together to run a West Dunbartonshire Citizens’ Panel as a partnership resource. This partnership approach is intended to help partners plan and work together on consultation with benefits for all concerned. One benefit will be increased sharing of the information gained from consulting panel members. A Steering Group co-ordinates the use of the Citizens’ Panel. Members of the Steering Group will make sure that people within their organisation know about the Panel and how to use it.

8 Where are we currently? The Council carries out a great deal of activity in relation to community engagement, public information provision and a range of consultation.

This activity is described in our Community Engagement Strategy which also incorporates our statutory Decentralisation Scheme – included in this document. As identified in the Best Value Audit of the Council, we need to review community engagement activity to ensure maximum efficiency and effectiveness and consultation plays an important part in this.

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9 Where do we want to be?

10 How will we achieve this?

We want an approach to consultation that consistently employs best practice and makes best use of the resources available to us.

We will support services to develop community engagement/consultation plans which:

• Better forward planning of consultation resulting in improved prioritisation and co-ordination of activity.

• Identify Stakeholders

We have identified three main areas for improvement:

• Better recording of consultation activity – and sharing of information gained. • More structured support to employees to consult effectively through promoting good practice and providing appropriate training opportunities.

We want services to adopt a more planned approach to engagement and consultation, with better evaluation and feedback including better evidence of how engagement and consultation processes have influenced policies, practices and service delivery. We want to ensure that this is embedded in the service planning process and linked to the Public Service Improvement Framework (PSIF). We also want to embed practices which help identify when co-ordination with partner organisations is needed and the best ways to do this.

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• Identify statutory and service planning consultation objectives (the latter linked into PSIF), timescales, frequency • Indicate likely mechanisms e.g. - WD Citizens Panel - Consultative groups/structures

• Identify a range of engagement methods (and provide access and training) • Identify feedback and reporting processes (first and second stage)

We will provide appropriate training and good practice guidance.

11 Monitoring and Evaluation The Action Plan for the Consultation Strategy will be included in the Action Plan for our Community Engagement Strategy. It will be monitored annually as part of the wider Community Engagement Strategy and will be reported via the Community Participation Committee and Council. Further Information For further information, contact: The Policy Officer, Community & Consultation, West Dunbartonshire Council, Policy Unit, Council Offices, Garshake Road, Dumbarton G82 3PU, tel. 01389 737177, e-mail [email protected]

West Dunbartonshire Council Consultation Strategy

Other formats This document can be provided in large print, Braille or on audio cassette and can be translated into different community languages.

Please contact: Corporate Communications, Council Offices, Garshake Road, Dumbarton, G82 3PU Telephone: 01389 737000