Introduction
Introduction by the Chair of the Aberdeenshire Community Planning Partnership, Cllr Audrey Findlay
Welcome to the second community plan of the Aberdeenshire Community Planning Partnership; a plan that takes forward our vision of working together for the best quality of life for everyone in Aberdeenshire.
Since the publication of our first community plan in 2000, a lot has been achieved by the partnership. Public agencies have recognised the importance of working together to deliver better, more coordinated services and communities have started to play an important role in local decision making through working with the partnership. We are now beginning to see some real benefits arising from partners and communities working together and we are pleased to be able to report on a number of very successful projects in this new community plan.
We have for the first time received some additional resources from the Scottish Executive to improve the quality of life in parts of North Fraserburgh and Central Peterhead. We have a plan which explains how we will go about doing this. The plan is called our Regeneration Outcome Agreement (ROA), and it has been approved by the Scottish Executive.
In order to refresh the first plan, we have consulted widely over the last year and asked people to tell us what they think about life in Aberdeenshire and how we could work better together with our communities. We have listened to what we were told and as a result, we have developed this new community plan, which builds upon and takes forward our original plan. New developments include the addition of new partners, the statement of specific, measurable objectives for the partnership, the establishment of local community planning groups and the introduction of annual reporting of our progress.
We recognise that change can take a long time to achieve and that some of our objectives will necessarily be long-term projects. We also recognise that the implementation of change cannot just be left to public sector agencies - everyone in Aberdeenshire has a role to play in making this plan work. The introduction of local community planning groups will give additional opportunities to people to become involved and play an active part in their community.
We believe that this new community plan will enable us to build upon the work carried out so far and to continue to work together for the best quality of life for everyone in Aberdeenshire.
What is Community Planning?
Community planning is a way of working, in which major providers of public and voluntary services in an area, work together with their communities to deliver better services. The Aberdeenshire Community Planning Partnership was formed in 1999 and we published our first community plan in 2000.
Community Planning became a statutory process in Scotland when the Local Government in Scotland Act 2003 came into force. The Act requires local authorities to lead the community planning process and other major public service agencies to participate in it. The partnership is required to work with its communities in order to improve the quality of life in the area.
Partnership working brings many benefits – organisations gain shared understanding of local issues and concerns and they can work together to deliver solutions without wasting money by duplicating each other’s efforts or competing against each other. Also, by working in partnership, organisations can pool resources to enable them to tackle bigger problems and attract external funding. The inclusion of community partners means that the better solutions can be reached and delivered in the way that best suits communities.
The Local Context
Aberdeenshire is the sixth largest of the 32 local authority areas in Scotland. We have a population of 232,849 and cover a predominantly rural area of 2,480 square miles, comprising a mixture of farmland, towns, coastline and mountains. Traditionally, the major industries of the area have been agriculture, fishing, forestry and tourism, some of which have suffered a decline in recent years. However this has been balanced by the emergence of the oil and gas industry and the development of the related service sector over the last 30 years, with the net effect being a broadening of Aberdeenshire’s economic base. This, in turn, has led to an increase in the population of Aberdeenshire, which has grown by 50% since 1971 and has a higher percentage of young people than the rest of Scotland. However, forecasts indicate that the population increase will peak around 2012 before falling gradually over the following years. Unemployment in Aberdeenshire is currently low, and 29% of the population commute to work in Aberdeen City. 50% of employees work in the service sector and 19% are self-employed. Forecasts indicate that over the next 15 years the proportion of working age people in the population will decrease and the number of retired people will increase.
Many parts of Aberdeenshire experience an excellent quality of life with good employment prospects, high standards of health care and low levels of crime. However, there are pockets of deprivation, both in urban areas where people may experience disadvantage due to problems associated with low income, poor health or low educational attainment and in small or remote rural communities, where lack of access to employment and services such as learning opportunities can be a problem.
The factors outlined above led us to develop the 5 themes of our community plan, which are described in detail later in this plan. Our themes allow us to divide our work up and group similar issues together and work as efficiently as possible. The themes are:
- Community Wellbeing (including community safety)
- Jobs and the Economy
- Lifelong Learning
- Sustainable Environment
- Developing our Partnership
