Audit Scotland’s recommendations for improvements to community planning partnerships

In its latest report on progress with community planning, Audit Scotland set out a range of actions the Scottish Government, COSLA and community planning partnerships (CPPs) need to take to improve community planning in Scotland.

The Scottish Government and COSLA should:

• Set out a clear route map for improving community planning with short-, medium- and long-term steps that will be taken locally and nationally to implement the Statement of Ambition and the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015 including how the impact of these changes will be assessed
• Work with the Improvement Service and others to establish a locally tailored national programme of improvement support for CPPs
• Establish arrangements through which good practice within individual CPPs can be identified and shared
• Establish a national forum which has the credibility and authority to address any national and local barriers to effective community planning
• Put in place a ‘test of change’ within a CPP to assess the impact of greater local autonomy on improving outcomes and identify any barriers to effective locally focused partnership working
• Evaluate the ‘test of change’ and implement the lessons learnt

The Scottish Government should:

• Clarify its specific performance expectations for CPPs and partners through its statutory guidance on the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015
• Streamline national performance management frameworks and create a better balance between short-term measures of individual service performance and the delivery of longer-term local outcomes through effective partnership working
• Place the views of local communities at the heart of measuring success in public service delivery
• Work with others to create a climate and culture where local public service leaders feel confident that they have autonomy and authorisation to decide how to respond to the specific needs of their communities

Community planning partnerships should:

• Target their resources on a larger scale towards their priorities and shift them towards preventative activity
• Ensure local communities have a strong voice in planning, delivering and assessing local public services
• Promote and lead local public service reform