How the success of community planning partnerships is measured.

At local level, Section 17 of the Local Government in Scotland Act 2003 requires local authorities, as facilitators of the community planning process, to report regularly to their local communities on what community planning has achieved, including evidence of improved outcomes for service users. The overall intention of the act is to offer “trust within a framework”: it is for community planning partners to decide on local priorities and how their achievement should be measured and reported. Accordingly, Statutory Guidance makes clear that reports on community planning should be “geared towards the local community rather than the Executive”.
At national level, the continuing programme of Audits of Best Value and Community Planning, performed by Audit Scotland on behalf of the Accounts Commission, provides an independent measure of the extent to which each council has fulfilled its “statutory duty to secure Best Value and to initiate and facilitate the Community Planning process”.
In addition, Audit Scotland is currently carrying out an extensive baseline review of community planning partnerships on behalf of the Accounts Commission and the Auditor General, for publication early in 2006. Audit Scotland describes the aim of the study as “to review the progress made by councils and partner organisations (including community and local voluntary groups) in developing Community Planning since the 2003 Local Government in Scotland Act came into force.”
Statutory Guidance on Community Planning was issued by Scottish ministers in April 2004 and is published at www.scotland.gov.uk/library5/localgov/cpsg-00.asp.