MEA Community Planning Partnership - 3rd Statement of Progress p3
How well is the partnership working?
- Published 3rd Statement of Progress in November 2023
- 6 further Strategic Alliance meetings
- 5 further Community Panel neetings
How well have we done it?
Representation at Community Panel Meetings
- Average attendance rate at Community Panel meetings ranged from 29% to 41%, with average attendance of 34% of those invited.
- Members (non MEABC staff) had an average attendance rate of 21%.
Representation at Strategic Alliance Meetings
- Strategic Alliance meetings had an average attendance rate of 36% of those invited.
- Statutory and voluntary partners (non MEABC staff) accounted for 26% of those in attendance.
Is anyone better off as a result?
Despite the ongoing review of the community plan during this period, coupled with still dealing with Covid-19 and subsequent restrictions, work did continue.
Many of the actions were still relevant and necessary and took on a stronger focus such as addressing needs, supporting mental health, and tackling vulnerability and poverty.
New actions involving multiple partners commenced in respect to the pandemic and subsequent cost of living rise and many continue.
A robust response to Covid-19 was made possible through community planning partners and a community planning approach.
This has strengthened further collaboration emerging from the pandemic as well as dealing with the cost-of-living rise and its impact on the most vulnerable.
Challenges
From the outset there was a range of challenges that impacted on the implementation and delivery of community planning activities.
Many of these remain to varying degrees across the sectors, such as:
- Varying levels of understanding across partner organisations
- Inconsistency of commitment across partner organisations
- Managing the high expectations of communities
- Delivering on new ambitious commitments from within existing and depleted resources
- Promoting the plan as a Mid and East Antrim plan and not a Council plan.
- As Lead Partner Council had secured the services of a statistician to work as part of the community planning team and liaise with partners throughout the development of the plan and in the initial delivery phase.
This resource has deleted over the past number of years and currently there is no access to such expertise in house.
This has an impact on the quantitative data collection and in the longer term will be an issue to be addressed by the wider partnership alongside the other challenges still being experienced. - Resourcing community planning continues to be a real challenge, particularly as it did not come with a defined budget.
This is particularly challenging for council as a lead partner who services the partnership and coordinates all activity.
This is not unique to Council as particularly post Covid-19 and the current cost of living rise, delivery of public services are under increasing pressure with many services not able to fully meet demand.
Community Planning is a way of working in partnership to reduce duplication and find new and more efficient ways of delivering public services
In practice, there should be a focus on the sharing of resources to improve the outcomes for our citizens but the practicalities of this has been and continues to be much harder than perhaps initially anticipated.
The review of Putting People First reflects the post pandemic landscape as well as the impact of the cost-of-living rise and has set priorities for the next four years (until next review) taking this context into account.
Covid-19 Recovery
The Local Government Act 2014 requires Councils to facilitate the development of a Community Plan in partnership with Community Planning partners.
The Community Planning Structure for Mid and East Antrim was designed with the involvement and engagement of the community planning partners, including the community and voluntary sector organisations.
The membership of the Community Planning Partnership includes the designated statutory partners set out in the legislation, community representatives included elected members and a range of other groups and organisations.
This has established a broader partnership which has been integral to the initial development and ongoing delivery of the community plan.