Standards for

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Standards for Community Engagement
Standards for Community Engagement
A Partnership Commitment
A Partnership Commitment
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Key policy drivers
Community engagement is at the heart of
policy Civic participation is an essential
tool of modern government.. (Civic
Participation - Policy Unit Scottish Executive
2000) Community Planning is essentially a
process to secure greater engagement from
communities in the planning and delivery of
services (Policy memorandum on the Local
Government Scotland Act 2003)
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Reflected in the Community Plan for Borders

• Priority projects include to
• engage with communities to enable new
  opportunities for regeneration in our Border
  towns
• New Ways Partnership believes that to achieve
  the vision (outlined in the CP) we need to listen
  to communities and ensure that they have a real
  voice.. when it comes to shaping services

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Local Community Action Planning

• Seeks to support local communities to identify
  needs and problems in their area and to develop
  local solutions

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Why were the standards needed?

• Negative feedback about community engagement from
  communities
• Short time scales, too formal, not addressing
  community priorities, lack of accessible
  information, poor skills etc
• Critical research evidence
• tokenism, modest impact, focused on
  officials priorities etc
• Lack of confidence expressed by agency staff
• Need to develop tools to support participatory
  governance policies

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How were the standards developed?

• Through community and agency engagement
• Focus groups highlighted issues
• Working groups developed draft standards
• An advisory group commented on them
• National conferences reviewed them
• 6 Pilot projects tested them
• The process reflected the standards !

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•  1.     Involvement

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• 2.     Support

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• 3.     Planning

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• 4.     Methods

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5.     Working Together
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6.     Sharing Information
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7.     Working with Others
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8.     Improvement
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• 9.     Feedback

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10.  Monitoring and Evaluation
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Measuring performance
Each standard has a set of indicators that can be
used to check that it is being met e.g.Methods
standard Indicator 2 Methods used identify,
involve and support excluded groups e.g. Working
Together standard Indicator 1 The participants
behave openly and honestly there are no hidden
agendas, but participants also respect
confidentiality
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Support resources http//www.communitiesscotland.
gov.uk

• Standards booklet setting out standards and
  indicators
• Users Guide explaining the standards and
  helping you get started
• Using the standards illustrating each standard
  in practice
• Starter toolkit
• Case studies
• Reference Manual
• Advice note on equalities groups

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The Standards Indicators
Each standard has a set of indicators that can be
used to check that it is being met e.g.Methods
standard Indicator 2 Methods used identify,
involve and support excluded groups
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How can the standards be used?

• To plan engagement
• To assess readiness
• To monitor and review progress
• To evaluate performance
• As a set of ground rules
• The standards pack contains illustrations of each

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Planning

• Key question how are we going to go about
  engageing the community?
• e.g. Early Years Partnership Craigshill West
  Lothian
• Key standards Involvement, Support and Methods