Audit Scotland
Community planning partnerships need to build on their economic
development activity to help meet local needs. Partnerships should also make
better use of available information and improve their understanding of the
costs involved in delivering local economic priorities.
An Audit Scotland report published today, The role of community
planning partnerships in economic development, looks at how
community planning partnerships (CPPs) operate. CPPs are involved in many
activities aimed at supporting their local communities. Because of this wide
ranging activity the audit focused on one policy area - CPPs’ contribution to
local economic development.
This follows a previous audit report on CPPs, published in 2006, which
highlighted a number of areas for improvement, including the need for: better
performance reporting; a better understanding of the cost of delivering on
their priorities; and the need to break down barriers to effective partnership
working.
Today’s report highlights that, since that previous report, the
development of Single Outcome Agreements has helped improve the way in
which CPPs monitor and report their performance. But judging performance is
made more difficult than it needs to be because of the large number of
performance measures for economic development being used across
Scotland. The report also highlights that better use of available economic
information and better involvement with the local business community are
needed to identify local priorities.
CPPs also need to understand the cost of delivering agreed local
priorities, and individual partners need to understand the implications for
their own budgets. There is little evidence of joint financial planning by local
bodies or a detailed understanding of the costs of delivering local economic
outcomes.
Chair of the Accounts Commission, John Baillie said:
“Community planning partnerships have a pivotal role in
joining up the delivery of local services to drive local economic development.
There are examples of partnerships helping bring jobs and other economic
benefits to their communities, and we encourage partnerships to build on this
activity to meet local economic needs. Partners also need to continue to
improve how they work together and get better at working out their costs to
ensure they are making the best use of resources.““Previously we highlighted that the complexity of community planning
structures and partners’ different accountabilities could be barriers to
effective working. Managers involved in community planning still believe this
to be an issue. It remains particularly evident in the extent to which different
partners are held to account for their individual contributions to local
economic development.”
The report emphasises the importance of shared responsibilities and
strong leadership.
Auditor General for Scotland, Robert Black said:
“There needs to be shared responsibility for performance
by all the partners involved in community planning. Previous Audit Scotland
reports have highlighted that successful partnership working requires strong
leadership and commitment from all partners. We have restated these
principles in today’s report.”