ClacksWeb - Clackmannanshire Council Online

Sections

• Business
• Children & Families
• Community & Living
• Council & Democracy
• Culture & Leisure
• Education & Learning
• Environment
• Housing
• Law & Regulation
• Planning & Building Standards
• Social Care & Health
• Transport & Roads
• Visiting & Tourism

Council Services

• Chief Executive's
• Corporate Development
• Development & Environmental
• Services to People

Community & Living

• Allotment Associations
• Anti-social Behaviour
• Cemeteries and Burial Services
• Citizens' Panel
• Civil Partnership
• Clackmannanshire's Awards
• Community Councils
• Community Planning
• Community Safety
• Community Wardens
• Consumer advice & Protection
• Genealogy
• Grant funding
• Local events
• Lord Lieutenant
• Marriages in Clackmannanshire
• Places of worship
• Volunteering
• Weather
• Webcam
• Youth Clubs

Clackmannanshire Community Plan 2006-2009

This page contains the full text of the Clackmannanshire Community Plan for 2006-09, which is also available to download.

Contents

1. Introduction and About Clackmannanshire
2. The Partnership
3. Economic Development
4. Health Improvement
5. Community Safety
6. Environment & Sustainability
7. Regeneration
8. Community Engagement
9. Reporting & Measuring Success
10. Further Information & Contacts

1. Introduction & About Clackmannanshire

Clackmannanshire is Scotland in miniature - magnificent scenery, a rich history and proud, enterprising people. Set in the very heart of Scotland, with the stunning Ochil Hills as its backdrop, Clackmannanshire has a lot to offer businesses, visitors and residents alike.

Clackmannanshire benefits from:

• A strong sense of community
• A convenient location in the centre of Scotland
• A manageable and compact area
• An outstanding natural environment
• A track record of public agencies working in partnership
• Economic revival, developing transport infrastructure and improving access
• A cost-effective living and business location
• A safe community

Like other parts of Scotland, however, Clackmannanshire also faces challenges, including:

• Unemployment rates above the Scottish average
• Pockets of persistent deprivation
• Slow growth in the knowledge economy
• Below average, though improving, levels of skills and qualifications
• Some poor levels of health

This document has been prepared by the main agencies which work in and for Clackmannanshire. These agencies together make up the community planning partnership, the role of which is to take action to enhance the quality of life for everyone in the county.

2. The Community Planning Partnership

The community planning partnership exists to Promote the Regeneration and Development of Clackmannanshire.

The partnership is made up of a wide range of agencies from the public, voluntary and business sectors. Each agency has an important contribution to make to the achievement of the partnership's overall aims. These aims, agreed by the partners after reviewing the challenges facing Clackmannanshire, can be summarised in 4 main inter-linked themes:

• Economic Development
• Health Improvement
• Community Safety
• Environment

Each of these themes has a strategy document and associated plan which set out the key objectives, priorities and actions which will be taken to address the challenges facing the area and to build on its many strengths.

These documents have been produced by Theme Teams of the community planning partnership and are approved and reviewed by the Clackmannanshire Alliance, which is the most senior grouping in the partnership.

The next sections of this document summarises the main issues and objectives within each theme. As well as having its own structures, the community planning partnership is responsible for leading and taking an overview of all inter-agency working in Clackmannanshire.

3. Economic Development

Clackmannanshire has undergone substantial economic change in recent years and has been the focus of major investment. The partners have undertaken a detailed review of the economic environment in Clackmannanshire and are basing their strategy on an analysis of the county's strengths and weakness, the opportunities it has open to it and the threats that it faces.

The partners have developed a ten-year vision for economic development in Clackmannanshire. The vision reflects the ambition to build a dynamic local economy that makes Clackmannanshire a successful place, driven by a confident community.

The partnership's strategy for economic development has three central aims:

• to increase the number of jobs in Clackmannanshire and to widen the range and enhance the quality of those jobs;
• to equip Clackmannanshire people to create and compete for jobs - locally and further afield;
• to create an environment and culture within which enterprise can flourish.

To achieve these aims, the partnership will:

Build Enterprise

• Increasing the number of new businesses and helping the rapid expansion of more medium sized companies that have ambitions to grow.

Build Skills

• Equipping people with the right mix of personal, core and technical skills for securing employment locally and more widely.

Build Connection

• Exploiting the new rail link, the new Forth Bridge and broad-band for their economic benefits.

Build Confidence

• Renewing a sense of belief amongst the people of Clackmannanshire that the area can compete and prosper and alerting the wider Scottish population to the positive changes in Clackmannanshire and enable them to engage as investors, residents or visitors.

4. Health Improvement

While the last twenty years have seen major improvements in life expectancy in Scotland and Clackmannanshire, there are still high levels of premature mortality in the key diseases of stroke, lung cancer and breast cancer. Crucially, the gap in health between the most affluent and the most socially deprived continues to be a major reason that Scotland experiences worse overall health than the rest of the UK. This is also a significant issue in Clackmannanshire and provides the key focus for the partnership in relation to health improvement.

The Clackmannanshire Alliance is working to achieve these broad aims through national and local priorities of: Early Years, Teenage Transition, Workplace Health and Community Health. The main focus areas within these priorities are:

Community Health

• Working with the Clackmannanshire Regeneration Partnership in Alloa South & East and Tullibody
• Promoting physical activity
• Encouraging breast-feeding
• Healthy eating
• Reducing substance use
• Involving individuals in decision-making

Early Years

• Improving child health
• Improving oral health
• Integrated children's services

Teenage Transition

• Sexual Health
• Smoking Cessation
• Mental Health

Workplace Health

• Awareness raising
• Promoting positive health choices

5. Community Safety

Public safety is of paramount concern to every individual and community. Clackmannanshire is a very safe place to live and work and enjoys low crime and high detection rates. Despite this, concerns about safety consistently feature as key priorities for the local population and the Clackmannanshire Community Safety Partnership was established in 2000 to create a framework for joint working to promote and maintain safety. The SWOT analysis reflects the views and perspectives of a range of Community Safety Partnership members. It provides the context for further improvement.

The Community Safety Partnership has agreed 3 key themes to achieve its vision:

Safety in the Home

• Support for victims of domestic abuse
• Support for victims of crime
• Reducing the incidence of domestic housebreaking
• Reducing accidents in the home
• Reducing the incidence of fatalities and injuries by fire, and increasing fire safety awareness
• Addressing in practical ways anti-social behaviour between neighbours

Safety in Communities

• Reducing crime and anti-social behaviour
• Reducing racist and other hate crimes
• Reducing crimes against children under 16
• Reducing wilful fire-raising
• Reducing incidence of autocrime
• Improving protection for children using the internet
• Increasing the number of people who view Clackmannanshire as a safe place to work and live

Safety on Our Roads

• Reducing road accidents
• Reducing road fatalities
• Reducing the number of people killed or seriously injured on our roads
• Reducing incidents of careless or dangerous driving

6. Environment & Sustainability

The role of the Clackmannanshire Alliance has been to identify a number of priority areas for action in Clackmannanshire which can bring about real environmental improvements in the short term and which can ensure that Clackmannanshire is well on the way to becoming a sustainable community.

The quality of the environment in which people live, work and relax is fundamental to their quality of life and general well-being. However, in our efforts to improve our quality of life today, it is important that we do not create problems for future generations. In order to achieve a balance between change and better use of existing environmental resources the Clackmannanshire Alliance has identified and agreed a number of priorities for action.

Natural and Built Environment

• Safeguarding and enhancing the area's natural heritage
• Addressing the sustainable management of all public open space
• Ensuring that built and natural heritage is enhanced

Promotion of Sustainable Transport and Access

• Ensuring a balanced approach between improving the transport infrastructure, encouraging "green" or alternative approaches to transport provision and the protection of the environment.
• Developing the existing network of public pathways and managing responsible access to the countryside.

Waste Management

• Providing the strategic context for future management of waste based around the principles of reduction, reuse and recycling.

Renewable Energy Sources

• Promoting energy efficiency in the design of new developments and the expansion of appropriate forms of renewable energy supply

Dealing with the Effects of Climate Change

• Undertaking practical projects to alleviate the threat of Climate Change related flooding and other extreme weather events.

Community Engagement and Awareness Raising

• Introducing 'Green Mapping to Clackmannanshire.
• Developing a regular local environmental forum where local people and organisations can get together to raise the profile of environmental issues

7. Regeneration

It is a particular responsibility of the Community Planning Partnership to deliver initiatives designed to support the socio-economic regeneration of Clackmannanshire. These initiatives have a focus on those communities which have more significant problems of unemployment, ill-health and crime than the rest of Clackmannanshire.

The Community Planning Partnership will receive £1m each year between 2005-2008 to invest in Alloa South and East and Tullibody, and parts of Sauchie, Coalsnaughton and Devonside. These are areas of Clackmannanshire which have been assessed nationally (using the Scottish Indices of Multiple Deprivation) as in need of targeted support.

The Partnership has developed a strategy to invest this resource (the Regeneration Outcome Agreement) and this strategy is managed by the Regeneration Board. The Board is made up of local councillors, officers from the Council, Scottish Enterprise Forth Valley and NHS Forth Valley, representatives of the voluntary sector and community representatives nominated by the Community Partnership Team, which represents all the areas eligible for regeneration funding.

The priorities of the Regeneration Outcome Agreement mirror those of the Community Planning Partnership and are:

• Health Improvement
• Community Safety
• Economic Development

8. Community Engagement

A key part of community planning is the involvement of community representatives so that the partnership priorities and activities reflect the needs of Clackmannanshire.

The partnership has set up a mechanism to enable interested individuals and groups to participate in issues which affect them.

The Clacks 1,000 is a citizens' panel of individuals from across Clackmannanshire who have agreed to participate in surveys about a wide range of issues.

Four Local Forums provide an opportunity for consideration of issues which affect groups of towns and villages, while the Clackmannanshire Forum brings together representatives of the local groups to consider issues which affect the County as a whole. Also represented on the Clackmannanshire Forum are young people and the voluntary sector.

The forums will feed directly into the Clackmannanshire Alliance and will be able to influence the various Theme Teams. The Alliance will commission surveys from the Clacks 1,000 and consider the feedback from those as it reviews progress in meeting the Alliance's objectives. An Annual Conference of members of all the forums will enable discussion across groups to take place and an annual report on community engagement will be produced by the Alliance.

The Alliance has adopted the principles of the National Standards For Community Engagement for all its engagement mechanisms:

Involvement

• We will identify and involve the people and organisations who have an interest in the focus of the engagement

Support

• We will identify and overcome any barriers to involvement

Planning

• We will gather evidence of the needs and available resources and use this evidence to agree the purpose, scope and timescale of the engagement and the actions to be taken

Methods

• We will agree and use methods of engagement that are fit for purpose

Working Together

• We will agree and use clear procedures that enable the participants to work with one another effectively and efficiently

Sharing Information

• We will ensure that necessary information is communicated between the participants

Working with Others

• We will work effectively with others with an interest in engagement

Improvement

• We will develop actively the skills, knowledge and confidence of all the participants

Feedback

• We will feed back the results of the engagement to the wider community and agencies affected

Monitoring and Evaluation

• We will monitor and evaluate whether the engagement achieves its purposes and meets the national standards for community engagement

The Clackmannanshire Community Learning and Development Strategy will underpin the work of the Alliance and its associated groups.

9. Measuring Success

The Clackmannanshire Alliance, through its Theme Teams, has agreed a set of high level indicators with associated targets to measure the success of its activities. Some examples of the outcomes which the partnership will be measuring include:

Economic Development

• Increased amount of business investment
• Enhanced economic competitiveness
• Maintenance of the local company and employment base
• Improved educational attainment
• Developed and updated skills
• Increased profile for Clackmannanshire

Health Improvement

• Increased physical activity
• Improved diets
• Reduction in the rate of smoking
• Reduction in the number of adults exceeding weekly limits of alcohol
• Improved dental health
• Reduction in deaths from coronary heart disease
• Reduction in deaths from stroke

Community Safety

• Creation of safer public environments
• Reduction in crime and anti-social behaviour
• Reduction in injuries and fatalities by fire
• Reduction in road accidents
• Improved perceptions of public safety

Environment

• Prevention of littering
• Minimisation of waste and maximisation of recovery, reuse and recycling
• Preservation of historic buildings, archaeological sites and other culturally important features
• Protection and enhancement of the landscape
• Avoidance of damage to wildlife sites

These outcomes, with indicators and targets, are contained in a separate document and an annual review will be published by the Alliance each year. This review will also provide information on the Partnership's key activities over the 12 month period.

The Theme Teams will report to the Alliance on a regular basis and the Alliance will also receive monitoring reports on progress in implementing the Regeneration Outcome Agreement.

A quality of life survey will be undertaken on a regular basis using the Clacks 1,000 Citizens' Panel and this will provide the opportunity for residents to provide views on improvements and developments in the area.

10. Further Information & Contacts

Community Planning, e-mail: communityplanning@clacks.gov.uk

Partners

• Clackmannanshire Council
• Scottish Enterprise Forth Valley
• NHS Forth Valley
• Central Scotland Police
• Central Scotland Fire & Rescue Service
• Communities Scotland
• Forth Valley College
• VisitScotland
• Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA)
• Scottish Natural Heritage
• Council for Voluntary Services (CVS) Clackmannnanshire
• Joint Community Councils Forum
• Clackmannanshire Tenants and Residents Federation
• Community Partnership Team - Regeneration

Updated: Sep 17 2008 15:38 | Top © Copyright 2000-2008 Clackmannanshire Council. All rights reserved.