Pablo Mascarenhas Community and Democratic Engagement Manager - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Pablo Mascarenhas Community and Democratic Engagement Manager Chief Executives Office Highland Council pablo.mascarenhas@highland.gov.uk Tel 01463 702247

Why Are We Here?

• Commission on the Future Delivery of Public

Services- Christie Report

• Renewing Scotland’s Public Services– Scottish

Government response to Christie

• Community Empowerment Act

Key Themes from Christie

• Outcomes
• Shift to prevention
• Target inequality
• Radical change in design and delivery of

services

• Partnership
• Collaboration

• People – We need to unlock the full creativity

and potential of people at all levels of public service, empowering them to work together in innovative ways. We need to help create ways for people and communities to co-produce services around their skills and networks.

• Partnership – We need to develop local

partnership and collaboration, bringing public, third and private sector partners together with communities to deliver shared outcomes that really matter to people.

What principles/approaches lie behind it?

• Local Outcomes
• Focus on inequalities
• Empowerment is more than engagement
• Reform is critical to quality and financial

viability

• Doing things “with” people not to them
• Positive relationships between communities

and the public sector

Community Empowerment Bill

The Bill reflects the policy principles of subsidiarity, community empowerment and improving outcomes and provides a framework which will:

• empower community bodies through the ownership of

land and buildings and strengthening their voices in the decisions that matter to them; and

• support an increase in the pace and scale of public

service reform by cementing the focus on achieving

• utcomes and improving the process of community

planning.

The Bill as introduced was divided into 8 parts.

• Part 1 aims to provide a statutory basis for the use of

“National Outcomes”.

• Part 2 contains a number of reforms to the system of

community planning.

• Part 3 provides for a process to allow community bodies to

become involved in delivery of public services.

• Part 4 makes a range of changes to the community right to

buy land, amending the Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2003.

• Part 5 provides for a process to allow community bodies to

take on assets from the public sector.

• Part 6 makes a number of reforms to the system of common

good.

• Part 7 is concerned with allotments.
• Part 8 allows local authorities to set their own reliefs for

business rates.

What principles/approaches lie behind it?

• Local Outcomes
• Focus on inequalities
• Empowerment is more than engagement
• Reform is critical to quality and financial

viability

• Doing things “with” people not to them
• Positive relationships between communities

and the public sector