Community Strategies and Sustainable Development
Filed under: Planning, Policy & Networks
A Review of Current Work by London Boroughs
Executive Summary
The Local Government Act 2000 gives local authorities a duty to prepare 'community strategies', for promoting or improving the economic, social and environmental well-being of their areas, and contributing to the achievement of sustainable development in the UK.
As the development and implementation of community strategies requires co-operation from different agencies and sectors, the statutory guidance on community strategies puts Local Strategic Partnerships (LSPs) at the heart of the community planning process.
This report reviews the 27 Community Strategies so far published by London Boroughs and evaluates them from a sustainable development perspective. The published Strategies were evaluated against thirty criteria derived from the London Sustainable Development Commission's Framework. The results were presented at Delivering Sustainable Development Through Community Strategies in London(1), a conference organised by Government Office for London, New Opportunities Fund and London Sustainability Exchange in November 2003.
Key Conclusions from Examining the Published Strategies
Around one third of authorities are seeking to make serious progress towards sustainability.
Of the rest perhaps 50 percent are keen to link environmental issues into other priorities but lack the serious political will to actually make this happen, while the remaining few have not addressed sustainable development to any significant extent.
The role of Local Strategic Partnerships and Community Strategies in achieving sustainability is underdeveloped...
This is because of:
Lack of knowledge and understanding about their purpose;
Uncertainty about the role and nature of the Local Strategic Partnership;
Scepticism within voluntary groups about the Community Strategy process;
Lack of involvement of the private sector, black and minority ethnic communities, and other hard-to-reach groups.
Making the Process Work for Sustainable Development
Recommendations for future versions.
Leadership: Seems likely to be the surest route to success. Key individuals seem to have been the driving force behind many of the good practice cases. Central support for such people could help them provided the cross-disciplinary leadership that is needed is given.
National Policy: If we are to meet national sustainable development objectives, then those objectives need to be reflected in local strategies.
National Targets: The focus so far has (quite rightly) been to ensure that Community Strategies meet local needs. There is now a need for guidance on design and inputs into Community Strategies to ensure achievement of our national and international commitments.
Audit: One clear way forward would be for the Audit Commission to develop clear indicators and targets to assess the incorporation of sustainable development in Community Strategies.
Guidance: Existing materials need to be used more widely and should be clearly London-focused.
Summary of Action by Key Partners
Local Strategic Partnerships need to take ownership of this process and members need to be prepared to accept that the Community Strategy is not there simply to advance their own agendas;
Councils need to provide both leadership and process support, through officers and elected members, through good process design and above all through accepting targets for sustainable development and working to ensure that they are met;
Government Office for London needs to recognise the current lack of guidance and to consider how best to provide support;
London-wide agencies with a specialist remit should identify key issues and goals for their particular field and distribute these to local authorities and to interested voluntary sector bodies;
Councils for Voluntary Service, similar bodies and local councils need to work together to ensure that there is clear public understanding and involvement in the process so that this work can help build social capital;
Voluntary and Community Sector groups need to take the opportunities to be involved. For this to happen all the other bodies need to see the development of that involvement as one of their responsibilities.
References:
(1) Proceedings and presentations from this conference can be downloaded from http://www.lsx.org.uk/programmes/comapproaches_page1298.aspx