EMPOWERED COMMUNITIES Supporting Community Capacity and Harnessing Social Capital
Our #TeamCaerphilly transformation programme is about reshaping the Council for the future. We must do things differently to protect the services that are required and valued.
We must also acknowledge that the organisation will undoubtedly be smaller and will deliver fewer services, and may deliver its remaining services in a different way.
We want to do this in a considered way, which understands need, considers our communities, plans for what we must deliver, and supports our staff in helping us to do this.
Effective communication and engagement is fundamental to the transformation agenda, and we will achieve this with our communities through the Caerphilly Conversation.
We must be open and honest with our communities in order to manage expectations; we want our communities to play a key part in this transformation journey and we want to do this with the support of our residents.
It is important that our communities understand and support the path we have taken; they too will be concerned about services for future generations. We are confident that we have a common understanding that we must look to the future, while upholding our social principles, in order to protect and future-proof our services.
We have already committed to the National Principles for Public Engagement in Wales, and we would like to extend the level of community involvement in our shared aims. We will use the best practice of the International Association of Public Participation to Inform, Consult, Involve, Collaborate and Empower our communities. We will develop a Consultation and Engagement Framework to support this.
We currently deliver a wide range of discretionary services which our communities have become accustomed to. If we are going to continue to deliver some of these discretionary services in the future (i.e. the things that we don’t legally have to do), we will need the help of communities and the voluntary sector to support us in delivering them.
The role of empowered, resilient communities in this transformation journey cannot be underestimated. Whilst these are difficult times, it is also an opportunity to embrace change and develop new ways of delivering Council services, with the support of our communities for the benefit of all.
The South Wales area has a unique sense of community that is not present in many other parts of the UK. It is our social capital; we look out for each other. The #TeamCaerphilly ethos must be such that, regardless of who we are - Councillors, staff, residents, the business community, partners, young people etc. - we all have a part to play in doing our bit for the good of our area.
We will work with our communities to encourage them to continue the good practices they already have i.e. practices such as recycling more, not dropping litter, volunteering in their local area, supporting grassroots sport, taking part in environmental clean ups etc. We can all do our bit for Caerphilly County Borough, empowered communities are vital in transforming the County Borough.
EMPOWERED COMMUNITIES Supporting Community Capacity and Harnessing Social Capital
To support this, our transformation strategy will include the principle of encouraging our staff to volunteer to work in the community. Corporate Volunteering is common in the private sector and increasingly so in the public sector. Our staff are passionate public servants, most of who live in the County Borough, who have grown up here, and have families here. They care about the area as much as others in our community. We want to explore the potential to release some of our staff capital into our communities.
We will also look at the assets we hold and where there is a strong case to do so, we will consider releasing assets for social and community purposes. We will develop a Community Asset Transfer Policy that will be an important part of this new approach, by equipping and empowering our communities to take direct ownership of service delivery where appropriate.
| KEY ACTIONS | TIMESCALE |
|---|---|
| Corporate Volunteering Policy to be developed and initially piloted in one service area | 31st December 2019 |
| Community Asset Transfer Policy to be finalised and approved by Cabinet | 31st December 2019 |
|
Develop a Consultation and Engagement
Framework to support empowered
communities to come on this journey with us |
31st December 2019 |