Improving local outcomes with community-led action plans
/This article was featured in the SCDC Weekly - 4th September 2024.
We know that involving communities in deciding priorities and shaping local action is vital if we're to maintain collective wellbeing, support regeneration, and reduce inequalities. This is a core part of community development work, but how can it happen in practice?
Community-led action plans are one way community groups can engage their community in conversations that lead to clear, detailed plans for how to improve services, the local environment or the local economy. These are different from other forms of agency-led planning in that communities control their content and how to get local people meaningfully involved.
Through a careful, planned approach, groups work with local support to gather community priorities which reflect different experiences of people living in a local area. This results in action to achieve positive outcomes around new projects, facilities and improved services.
We've seen through our Supporting Communities programme examples of how community organisations have developed these plans and helped to join them up with existing planning processes around place.
Earlier this year we shared our vision for local democracy and argued that community-led action plans should be one of the main means that communities use to set the local agenda for action, and that to be effective they need statutory recognition to ensure they are implemented wherever possible by local authorities and other public agencies.
While these proposed new powers for communities to take more decisions locally would come with new responsibilities, with the right support, we think community anchor organisations could use community-led action plans to address local issues and see improved outcomes for all.
What you need to know this week.
The SCDC Weekly gives you everything you need to know around community development and beyond.
It’s free, concise and delivered directly to your inbox every Wednesday.