Community Planning is a major newstatutory responsibility. Following the Northern Ireland localgovernment reform, each of the new councils in Northern Ireland isnow responsible for CommunityPlanning. This reform means that Northern Irelandcouncil responsibilities are in line with England, Scotland andWales.
Each council will formulate it’sown Community Plan. This plan will help to develop the overalllong-term direction for each of the new councils. The concept of theCommunity Plan is to improve public services with the aim of bettermeeting local community needs. Education, safety, health, leisure andtownplanning are some of the areas to be addressed inthe community plan.
Although each councilis responsible for it’s own plan, in order to maintain consistencyacross Northern Ireland, a Regional Partnership Panel withrepresentatives from each council will becreated.
Representatives will listen tolocal people to find out what is needed, agree on urgent matters, andagree how to deal with urgent matters with available funds and keepall stakeholders informed of the process.
Asthe Community Plan is to be based on evidence, the first step is tofind out what the community believes is needed for the local area.Once method of listening to the local community is via publicconsultation. Public consultations will berequired with residents, businesses, a wide range of voluntary andcommunity organisations, partner agencies and other stakeholders. Theplan also includes community needs found using through local data andinsights.
Experienced in publicconsultation, CARD Group is ideally placed to help local councilsgather accurate evidence. For more details, please visit card-group.com.