What is community-led action planning and how does it work?
/Our place, our say, our way - What is community-led action planning?
Community-led action plans (CAPs) have been around for around fifteen years in Scotland and are growing in importance. It involves community groups and organisations in having community conversations leading to clear and often detailed plans for how to improve services, the local environment or the local economy.
It has been known for a long time that involving local communities in deciding what matters and shaping what needs to be done about it is vital to maintaining collective wellbeing, supporting regeneration where its needed and ensure they are sustainable for those living there. That is why this has always been a big part of what community development sets out to achieve.
When viewed alongside a need to improve the targeting and design of local services and a growing need for more participatory democracy, finding an effective way to explore what local people think matters and turning it into a plan for local action has meant that Community Led Action Planning has become even more important.
How do Community-led action plans work?
Community action planning is a shared process across communities. It involves a careful, planned approach to:
gathering and reflect community priorities
be informed by good quality community engagement with as many local people as possible reflecting different experiences of living locally
ensuring collaboration – with agreed priorities across the community and between communities and agencies
focus on real action to achieve beneficial outcomes by agreeing which local groups and agencies will commit to turning local priorities into new projects, facilities and improved services.
Through our Supporting Communities programme we work with local organisations to either develop their own community-led action plans or Local Place Plans, describing local land use and or to have a greater say in other local planning processes such as Locality Planning.
CAPs and other local planning processes
These plans are different from other localised planning processes about places. There is a requirement for Community Planning Partnerships or other agencies to produce Locality Plans and you might have one of these in your area. They are different because they are not controlled by communities and tend to cover fewer issues although their are similarities. CAPs differ because local people through their community organisations like community councils, community development trusts or local networks working together are in control of what they are trying to achieve, how plans are produced and what priorities they highlight.
Our vision for community-led action plans
As part of SCDC’s response to the Scottish Government’s Democracy Matters consultation, we shared a vision for how community-led action plans could be used as the main means to set out democratic community priorities leading to action action on local issues. In our response, we said that:
We think community-led action plans should be the starting point for expressed community views in other plans, and should have statutory recognition and a formal role.
Community-led action plans should be the main means by which communities set the local agenda for action, either in the form of public service reform, co-production or pursuing independent community-led activities and regeneration.
They should also be developed to actively consider how to involve the whole community including seldom heard voices, even if this has to be achieved over a longer period.
Local action plans should be led by community anchor groups / networks people trust to work on their behalf, alongside local elected members. They should be supported to use credible, robust engagement processes which lead to high quality plans with a clear vision and practical steps for achieving it in communities.
Over time CAPs should become the main source of data, aspiration and local ideas which agencies preparing local service plans about areas should look to draw the issues at the heart of public locality planning.
In our experience communities who are already producing their own plans are excellent in thinking about actions which lead to preventative outcomes. This builds on their deep understanding of how issues affect people lives in communities and what needs to be done to address needs leading to better outcomes for local people.
Examples
Through our Supporting Communities programme, we’ve worked with a number of community anchor organisations to help them explore community-led actions plans.
However, if many more communities seek additional powers and therefore need to produce robust action plans, many will require help to think through the approach to the task.
You can find out more about community-led action plans on the Argyll and Bute community-led action plan toolkit site.
