Engaging local communities

A key element of the unitary council must be that it has effective local working involving community stakeholders in the work of the council.

In order to achieve this, the proposal for a single unitary council contained a structure to engage local communities with the new council and brought forward proposals for 27 ‘belonging communities’.  Although the concept of 27 belonging communities has been reviewed, the new council aims to devolve decision making to as local a level as possible.

Parishes, town councils and existing community organisations are to play pivotal roles in shaping decisions and services around local needs through ‘community forums’. 

Consultation with community and parish council representatives took place prior to the local elections earlier this year, and detailed consultation with communities across the whole county will start in September. These consultations will help to shape arrangements for community forums.

So what happens next?

Elected members will now lead a countywide consultation looking at how parish and town councils and other organisations can effectively involve local residents and businesses to represent the community’s voice in the community forums. 

Community forums will have the following principles:

• To be representative of, and actively involve all parts of a community
• Be effective and properly managed, with members and officers upholding a high standard of conduct
• Ensure close working with voluntary and community sector groups, and articulating the community’s needs and wishes through effective communications
• To work in partnership with the local authority and agencies.

In some places, forums may be based on clusters of organisations that already exist, such as a forum of parish councils, or be run by an established organisation such as a community partnership acting on behalf of all key partners.

Area committees

Three area committees, representing the North, South-East and West of the county are also to be established (Yellow boxes in the diagram below).

Committees aree to be set up in the three areas (yellow boxes above) and forums are to be set up in the 27 localities (blue boxes above). It has been agreed that local ward councillors will be allocated ‘community chest’ style budgets to spend on local projects.

Area committees will be responsible for managing delegated ‘local services’, and, along with parish and town councillors, will also be involved in area based scrutiny.