Community Planning in OmaghA Pilot Process

Sonya McAnullaPolicy Officer

Omagh District Council

Presentation Overview

• Overview of Omagh District Council

• Context

• Process

• Finalising the Plan

• Experience/Learning to Date

Omagh – A Sub-Regional Centre

Introduction

• RPA final decisions Better Government for Northern Ireland (March 2006) committed to ‘developing a reinvigorated local government sector, with the local council at the heart of the community transforming the social and economic life of the local area’

Statutory Duty

• Government will place a statutory duty on councils to prepare a community plan in consultation with other service providers who will be required to co-operate fully in the planning process.

What is Community Planning?

• According to Task Force on Community Planning:

• Community planning is any process through which a council comes together with other organisations to plan, provide for, or promote the well-being of the communities they serve

• Task Force recommended pilots across NI

Context

• Positive ethos of Partnership Working– LSP, CSP, DPP, Taskforce, OBF

• Experience of ILS development

• Commitment in Corporate Plan

• Opportunities afforded by RPA

Objective I

• To produce a pilot community plan for Omagh District Council, within the confines of its existing boundaries, working with other statutory, private and voluntary/community sector providers in the area.

Objective II

• Facilitating RoleLocal authorities, as democratically elected bodies, have a community leadership role which is pivotal to facilitating (but not dominating) the community planning process.

Process

• Appointment of University of Ulster and SER Solutions

• Commenced early September 2006• 3 Plenary Sessions

– ODC Members and Officers– Statutory Partners– Vol/Comm and Private Sectors

• Follow-Up Bi Lateral Discussions

Process (II)

• Separate workshops with councillors, statutory organisations, and the private and voluntary and community sectors to agree vision and priority themes.

• Returned to statutory partners to agree a detailed action plan and associated targets.

• Each theme in the action plan structured around 3 questions: what we will do, how will we do it, and who will lead.

Elements of a Community Plan

1. An overall vision/mission statement for the Omagh District Council area.

2. A small number of high-level cross-cutting themes which require collaborative actions across community planning partners with an identified lead organisation.

3. An action plan linked to the cross-cutting themes with measurable targets and outputs.

Elements of a Community Plan

4. A formal commitment to the community plan by partners through their own internal planning and decision making processes.

5. Monitoring and evaluation of progress in meeting the targets/outputs outlined in the community plan (through the Community Planning Partnership).

Process (III)

• Created Quality of Life indicators• Indicative resource implications• Further Consultation• Adoption of Plan – January 2007• Creation of Community Planning P/ship• Share experience

•Aims of the community plan•Supplementary principles

•What will we do?•How will we do it?•Who will lead?

•High level•Cross-cutting•Few in number

•Partner organisations ‘sign-up’ to community plan•Establish Community Planning Partnership

•Monitor against action plan targets•Evaluate against Quality of Life Indicators

•Omagh District Councillors agree vision and priority themes to improve the Quality of Life of its citizens

•Multi-agency officials agree the detailed action plan and associated targets in the Community Plan

•Social partners consider ways to assist in its implementation

•Community Plan endorsed by the Council and the wider community

VISION STATEMENT

THEMES

ACTION PLAN

COMMITMENTS

MONITOR AND EVALUATE

Emerging Themes

• (Economic) Prosperity & Well Being

• Community Safety and Shared Future

• Health and Well Being

• Infrastructure

• Education and Lifelong Learning

• Environment

Community Plan ‘Proofing’• High level commitments to ‘what we will

do’ – these must add value to the existing work of planning partners.

• Limit the number of actions but make them truly collaborative, realistic and achievable – in other words, partners need to co-operate to make them happen (cross-cutting, joined-up commitments).

Community Plan ‘Proofing’• Aside from routine monitoring against

targets set within the plan, the ultimate test of community planning is whether its implementation improves the quality of peoples’ lives in Omagh.

• We therefore need to begin with baseline information in order to assess whether improvements have happened.

Baseline QoL InformationOmagh relative to Northern Ireland

-15 -10 -5 0 5 10

Economically active

Earnings

Unemployed

Free School Meals

Income Support

Incapacity Benefits

School Leavers with 5+ GCSEs

School leavers into higher education

Degree level or higher qualification

People with long-term illness

Standardised mortality ratio

Teenage pregnancies

Owner Occupied Houses

Houses owned outright

Rented

Off ences against the person

Theft

Burglary

Criminal Damage

Figure 8.1

Worse than Northern Ireland Better than Northern Ireland

Experience/Learning to Date

• Positive Experience

• Keen interest from all participants– Initial engagement– Continuing Role in the process

• Collaboration with sectors vital

• Reinforces work (and future?) of other partnerships

Experience/Learning to Date• But…

– Misnomer of “Community” planning– “Tension” re future role of CPP– Power of Sanction – how powerful?– Statutories, good on process but tentative on target

setting; grapple with intersecting lines of accountability – vertical to Minister/Assembly; horizontal to CP.

– Long lead in time required/Scale of pilots– Resource implications – “budget neutral”

The Outcome

To make Omagh District an economically prosperous, healthy, sustainable and

quality place in which to live and work and to place the district at the heart

of the administration of the Tyrone and

Fermanagh region.(Vision, Omagh Community Plan 2007 – 2010)