AGENDA ITEM 11.7
The development of the Community Strategy and integration
with other statutory Strategies
Purpose of report
To seek Ceredigion Local Service Board endorsement of the proposed
Community Strategy strategic outcomes for Ceredigion and the
integration of the statutory Strategies and thematic Plans.
Background
As in every County, Ceredigion has complex partnership arrangements, many
of which support Plans / Strategies and have developed in silos based around
these themes.
The LSB agreed at its meeting in April to focus on 3 / 4 strategic outcomes for
the Community Strategy, rather than to structure the document by themes.
The aim is to improve integration between each of the statutory strategies and
themes as well as achieve closer working with partner organisations and
partnerships.
Workshop
A Workshop was held on the 27th September 2010 to consider and identify
the strategic outcomes for Ceredigion and how better integration could be
achieved. The workshop was attended by
participants representing a
sound cross section of public sector bodies and the lead officers of
Community strategy thematic groups.
The aim of the Workshop was to agree on shared, strategic outcomes for
Ceredigion, which would be aligned to the Community Strategy, statutory
plans / strategies and the thematic groups – delivering for the citizens and
communities of Ceredigion.
1
In order to inform discussions in the Workshop, information from respective
needs assessment were given:
o Health, Social Care and Wellbeing
o Children and Young People
o Community Safety.
Strategic Outcomes
Using the Results Based Accountability approach, each of the 4 work
Groups were asked to consider ‘conditions of wellbeing / quality of life’ for
citizens and communities in Ceredigion:
Population
Definition
Strategic Outcomes (or
Results)
Indicators (or
Benchmarks)
Strategies
Explanation
Conditions of wellbeing for children, adults,
families or communities, stated in plain English
e.g. healthy children, safe communities
Measures which help quantify the achievement
of a result e.g. crime rate helps quantify
whether people are living in safe communities
etc.
Coherent collections of actions which have a
reasoned chance of improving results.
Strategies are made up of best practice of what
works, and include the contributions of many
partners. No single action by any one agency
can create the required improved results.
Following group exercises which considered priorities and strategic
outcomes, the following reflect discussions:
Safe
Confident /
resilient
Housing in Ceredigion can support
and strengthen the cultural, economic
and demographic needs of the
community
Connected
A sense of
belonging
(participation)
Preventative
agenda and
resilience of
individuals to be
accountable
Participative
communities
Employment
and income
(sustainability)
Integrated
communities
Supportive
communities
Rurality
2
Sustainable
communities
It is recommended that the Strategy should adopt clear statements and the
following Strategic Outcomes for Ceredigion are recommended as the
preferred high level cross-cutting outcomes for Ceredigion:
Safe
Confident
Connected
Belonging
Examples of activity
Road safety
Crime reduction
Protection of vulnerable groups
Flooding / Coast protection
Home Safety
Health
Economy / jobs / benefits / poverty
Housing
Education / skills
All services
Wellbeing
Bilingualism
ICT
Transport links / accessibility
Information
‘Economically connected’
Participation
Inclusion
Neighbourhood
Further work will be needed to develop suitable indicators to measure the
achievement of each of the strategic outcome, i.e.

How can we measure these conditions?

How are we doing on the most important of these measures
(baselines and the story behind them)?

Who are the partners that have a role to play in doing better?

What works for us to do better, including no cost/low cost ideas?

What do we propose to do?
Performance
Performance Measures
Measures of how well projects/initiatives
agencies are working. 3 Types:
and
1. How much did we do? (Quantity/Effort) e.g.
number of service users receiving service
2. How well did we do it? (Quality) e.g. % seen
within week of referral
3. Is anyone better off? (Effectiveness) e.g. % off
drugs at end of intervention
Effort
or
Quantity
or
Quality
How much did
How well did
we do?
we do it?
#
%
Is anyone better off as a result?
Effect
3
#
%
Integration of Strategies / Partnerships
Each of the statutory Strategies is currently being developed with a
deadline of adoption by 1st April 2011, which provides an opportunity to
achieve alignment and integration.
There are benefits to each of the partnerships and to the delivery of the
plans/strategies for taking this approach. These include:
 Improving integration
 Reducing duplication
 Enable each to inform and be informed of each other as a ‘family of
strategies’
 Capture the outcomes delivered across all of the partnerships and to
communicate this performance to citizens and stakeholders
 Working towards an integrated performance framework based on a
number of strategic outcomes level
There was general consensus at the Workshop that in view of current
budgetary concerns, integration of strategies was essential – to make the
best use of the resources available to improve the quality of life of citizens
in Ceredigion. This could be achieved by:
- Having less priorities – shared between partnerships / organisations:
agreeing key issues based on an analysis of need and prioritised (see
strategic outcomes above)
- Co-design of Strategies which are ‘people-centred’ and community
focussed
- Aligning targets and budgets
- Focus on delivery
- Sharing resources, knowledge etc for community engagement.
Recommendations
It is recommended that the Ceredigion Local Service Board:
a) Agrees upon the 4 draft Strategic Outcomes for further development of
indicators: Safe, Connected , Belonging, Confident.
b) Agrees to the proposed approach whereby the draft Strategic
Outcomes be implemented by each of the three statutory partnerships
and the Community Strategy, and to request each Partnership to seek
alignments and integration.
c) To develop a common reporting framework to the LSB for each of the
strategies, based upon the Strategic Outcomes.
4