Blaenau Gwent Single Integrated Plan

In 2012, the Welsh Government challenged local authority areas across Wales by April 2013 to improve the way they worked together to improve the local area. The challenge was to develop a single plan for partnership working, which will be called a Single Integrated Plan (SIP), and to streamline the arrangements for partnership working.

The expectation was that all local authority areas' SIPs would replace the previous partnership plans, of which there were at least four (excluding the Local Development Plans), and to streamline the local area partnership arrangements by at least half.

The Welsh Government released statutory guidance on Integrating Partnerships and Plans called Shared Purpose: Shared Delivery. This guidance replaced previous statutory guidance derived from a number of pieces of legislation including those for the Community Strategies e.g. Local Government (Wales) Measure 2009.

Making a difference: Blaenau Gwent Single Integrated Plan 2013 to 2017 sets out a four-year delivery plan.

It will sow how we intend to achieve this long-term vision by highlighting a number of high level themes for partnership working for the next few years in Blaenau Gwent. It will also outline what needs to be done for each theme and their priorities.

Community Strategy

Each local council in Wales has a duty to lead a process called community planning.  This involves working with other partners, some who have a duty in law, to develop and deliver a community strategy.

In simple terms, community planning is the process where local partners come together to identify the needs and issues of the local area, and outline a clear direction for the future.  This includes developing a vision, and setting out what needs to be done and how it will be achieved.

This process leads to a document being produced called the community strategy.  This brings together all the relevant information in one place.  The community strategy should become the first place people go to find out what is planned for the area over a 10 to 20 year period. As a result, it is important that people can easily understand what the strategy is saying. 

The community strategy cannot cover every issue that may be relevant to a local community. It should focus on those issues where partners, either together or individually, can make a difference over the longer term.  

The community planning process has allowed us to identify seven themes for the Blaenau Gwent community strategy. Each theme is focused on the community and has its own vision.

 

• Lively and accessible communities
  Creating communities that people enjoy and want to live in.
  
• Thriving communities
  Offering the opportunities, support and resources in our communities for people to thrive.
  
• Fair and safe communities
  Making people feel safer and included in our communities
  
• Learning communities
  Giving people the skills to succeed.
  
• Healthy communities
  Helping people to be healthy and get the right care and support when they need it.
  
• Green sustainable communities
  Improving our environment today for tomorrow.
  
• Leading Communities
  Working with, and for our communities.

An important part of the ongoing community planning processes will be for local partners to produce an action plan that outlines practically what will be done to make sure we achieve our vision. 

As the intention set out in this document is over a 20 year period to help make sure progress is on right track, every year local partners must review what has been done.  Once every four years a full-scale review must be carried out to see if the overall direction of the strategy is still the best for the area as a whole.

Community planning is an ongoing process, which makes sure that the community strategy is kept relevant for the area and its communities.

The community strategy was agreed at Council and launched in early 2011.