Flintshire County Council's Community Strategy

What is a Community Strategy? A Strategy is an overall Plan designed to achieve stated aims and objectives, using Action Plans to do this. A Community can mean many things to different people, but usually implies that the people who belong to one have something in common with others who also belong. We all live in geographical communities, whether these are villages, estates, towns or the whole county. Many of us also live in other types of community, such as artistic, sporting or industrial communities, in which we may play an active part or a more quiet role. The Community Strategy is thus the overall plan to develop the kind of place that we want to live in in 2020. Following the Local Government Act 2000, all local authorities in England and Wales have a duty to lead the process of producing a Community Strategy that will promote the economic, social and environmental well-being of their area. In doing this, the local authority must consult and seek the participation of appropriate persons and organisations. The Community Strategy tries to fulfil a number of purposes, namely to: enhance the quality of life of local communities through action to improve their economic, social and environmental well-being; contribute to the achievement of sustainable development; provide a mechanism to debate locally the needs, opportunities and aspirations of local communities and establish priorities; provide a focus for continuous improvement in joint working and resource planning between local authorities, the voluntary and business sectors and other agencies to ensure that they effectively meet community needs and aspirations; help councils develop their corporate priorities; identify how the Welsh Assembly Government’s priorities relate to local priorities and how they can be implemented at local authority level; challenge and test the contribution of services, policies and practices to current and future well being; underpin applications to the National Assembly for Wales and other bodies for funding and support. What does the Flintshire Community Strategy do to achieve this? The Flintshire Community Strategy is a framework to bring in new ways for public services to work with communities in Flintshire. It seeks to help people to take control of their lives, but to provide support services whenever needed. The Strategy applies to the County of Flintshire, but its effects will overlap into neighouring areas, such as Wrexham, Denbighshire, Cheshire and Wirral. It is set over a 16 year period, from 2004 to 2020. The Flintshire Community Strategy needs to include: a long-term vision between 2004 and 2020 of how we want to Flintshire to change over that period; a number of key themes and sub-visions that reflect the needs and priorities of local people; action plans (and other strategies) that have shorter term priorities and achievable aims; clear targets and measures to show whether we are making progress; the means and commitment to achieve these targets; arrangements to monitor and report progress. The Community Strategy is not necessarily about making promises to meet all the wishes of communities, as public sector agencies are often limited either by finance or legislation as to what they can do. It is more about making sure that people are listened to before decisions are taken, and that those who have been consulted have some explanation of the final decisions. For this reason, the Strategy has not tried to set service delivery targets (which will be set by other Strategies), but has tried to look at the way decisions are made.