What is Community Planning?

• Creating a shared vision of community priorities
• Process initiated by local councils. A multi-organisational, community based approach
• Supported by key local groups and organisations along with local people
• Driven by the Local Strategic Partnership (LSP)

What is a LSP?

A Local Strategic Partnership (LSP) is a single body that:

• Brings together at a local level the different parts of the public sector as well as the private, business, community and voluntary sectors so that different initiatives and services support each other and work together;
• Is a non-statutory, non-executive organisation;
• Operates at a level which enables strategic decisions to be taken and is close enough to individual neighbourhoods to allow action to be determined at community level.

Core tasks for an LSP

• Prepare and implement a Community Strategy for the area
• Bring together local plans, partnerships and initiatives
• Work with local authorities that are developing a local public service agreement (PSA) to help devise and then meet suitable targets.

General Expectations

• Involve local communities
• Bring together public, private, community and voluntary sectors
• Operate at a strategic level
• Be effectively led
• Work as a genuine partnership
• Ensure community priorities are reflected in service delivery
• Be accountable to local people

How can partnerships add value?

• Achieve more that you can on your own
• Provides space for independent thinking
• Brings new people into projects
• Builds local confidence
• Present a more credible and trustworthy picture to national government and investors
• Overcomes short-termism of politics and business
• Brings in investment
• Better co-ordinated services
• Provide long term thinking
• Eventually provide a higher quality of life