EXECUTIVE SUMMARY / In one short paragraph please describe this project and what it has achieved.
We will use this in any future publicity material.
This project describes how the Aberdeenshire Community Planning Partnership (ACPP) established and continues to manage the Aberdeenshire Citizens’ Panel. The Panel was first set up in 2003 following a grant award from the Scottish Government with the aim of increasing the effectiveness of the ACPP community consultation mechanism. Following a successful 18 month trial a decision was taken to continue use of the Panel. Funding is currently available to extend the life of the panel to at least 2013. There are currently over 1250 Aberdeenshire residents on the panel and they are spread quite evenly over the six areas of Aberdeenshire making the panel one of the most geographically dispersed in the country. Todate 17 quarterly surveys have been carried out with an 18th scheduled for October 2009. Average response rates are 72% which is very high for a postal survey.
PLANNING / · a clear rationale, defined processes and focus on stakeholder needs
· contributes to organisation’s goals, community plan and SOA, and national policy context
The Aberdeenshire Community Planning Partnership (ACPP) was formed in 1999 and published its first community plan in 2000. In 2006 as part of the development of the second community plan, membership of the partnership was reviewed and now consists of:- Aberdeenshire Council (as the lead organisation), NHS Grampian, Grampian Police, Grampian Fire and Rescue Service, Scottish Enterprise, Skills Development Scotland, Aberdeenshire Community Councils, Aberdeenshire Councils for Voluntary Service, Aberdeenshire Local Rural Partnerships and Nestrans. Since its inception ACPP has looked for ways to rationalise and improve how it plans and provides services for communities in Aberdeenshire and community engagement and consultation is seen as central to this. In 2003, the Scottish Government awarded a grant to ACPP, to be used to investigate various means of providing greater local understanding of and engagement with the delivery of services. As a result the Partnership set up the Citizens’ Panel, initially on an 18-month trial, with the overall aim of providing a means of consulting and involving communities in order to assist community planning partners in their decision-making process. Using the Panel, Partners can seek the views of citizens and communities on the services they provide both jointly and as individual organisations.The objectives for the panel are:
- To provide feedback on the services provided by ACPP members. For example, overall perceptions of service providers, health services, community safety, housing, transport, recreation, environmental issues.
- To identify priorities for the ACPP in relation to the 5 themes of the Community Plan (Sustainable Environment, Community Well Being, Lifelong Learning, Jobs and the Economy and Developing our Partnership).
- To elicit information on the experiences of local residents or citizens in dealing with the partners involved in ACPP
- To create a sounding board to consult on policies and practice
- To identify a baseline against which future research can be developed.
Having obtained the Scottish Government grant ACPP set about identifying an experienced consultant who would work with them to establish a Citizens’ Panel and then manage the subsequent programme of research. Following a competitive tendering exercise Craigforth Consultancy and Research were identified as the lead consultants for the Citizens’ Panel. The Consultants would be answerable to the Community Planning Board but day to day support would be provided by the Community Planning Team.
DELIVERING / · implemented in all relevant areas and across all the required stakeholders
· carried out in a structured and logical way , using robust and sustainable methods
Working with the Consultants a protocol for managing the Panel was agreed. This defined what the Panel could be used for and who could use it.
The next stage was to recruit members to the Citizen’s Panel. Between December 2003 and May 2004, nearly 20,000 invitations to join the panel were sent out to a representative sample (in terms of race, age, sex, social and economic background and geographical location) of the Aberdeenshire population. From this mailing the Partnership was able to recruit over 1,350 residents of Aberdeenshire who were willing to be consulted regularly on matters of local concern. Members of the Panel had to commit to return up to four survey questionnaires a year and those who were interested were given the opportunity to participate in up to three focus groups or workshop-style events per year. Accompanying the invitation letters was a questionnaire which allowed an initial measure of satisfaction to be made and also provided an indication of possible issues worthy of exploration in greater depth. Based on this feedback the Consultants worked with the Community Planning Partners to develop a programme of six surveys over the 18 months duration of the pilot focusing on the community planning themes of Community Wellbeing,Jobs and the Economy,Lifelong Learning, Sustainable Environment, Developing our Partnershipand also covering issues such as community safety, schools, waste management and recycling, work and training,transport. The fifth survey also included a review of community planning.
The Consultants were asked to develop a mechanism for feeding back the outcomes of each consultation to participants. It was decided to do this via a regular newsletter containing an executive summary of each research findings and details on how each Partner organisation will use the findings to improve services. A member of the Community Planning Team writes and produces the newsletter based on the Consultants research report. The Panel was asked to choose a name and logo for this newsletter and agreed on the name “Viewpoint.” Copies of each newsletter are also made available to the public via the Community Planning website. The Consultants were also given the responsibility for managing membership of the Panel. An Access database is used to maintain an up-to-date list of members. Panel members who fail to return three successive questionnaires are removed from the list. Membership is “refreshed” every two years with 10% of existing members being retired and new members being recruited. A reserve list of members is maintained to ensure a minimum number of Panel members are available for participation in each survey.
IMPROVING +EVALUATING / ·evidence of leading practice and innovation being achieved
·appropriate measurement and learning,and how this has led to continuous improvement
The success of the Citizen’s Panel was reviewed after 18 months. The fifth survey included a section exploring the views of Panel members. High levels of satisfaction were reported for key aspects of the Panel’s work including the clarity of survey forms and covering letters, feedback newsletters, the range of topics covered and the frequency of surveys. Based on this review ACPP agreed to continue the funding of the Citizen’s Panel and a budget to support the work of the panel was guaranteed. Funding is now in place to continue the work of the Panel up to at least 2013.In 2006 the contract with Craigforth expired. ACPP agreed to develop a joint tender with Aberdeenshire Council for a Consultant to both carry out Residents and Employee attitude surveys on behalf of Aberdeenshire Council and to manage the Citizens’ Panel on behalf of ACPP. By combining the consultancy work in a single contract it was felt that timing, co-ordination and interlinking of the survey work could be more effectively achieved by using one consultant rather than two. Such a joint approach would give better synergy of research. As a result of a competitive tendering exercise IBP Strategy and Research were appointed lead consultants.
ACPP works with the Consultants to monitor the continued effectiveness of the Citizen’s Panel There are three strands to this monitoring as shown under the Results Section.
(a) Maintaining an optimum list of active members – target 1,250
(b) Ensuring an overage response rate of at least 70% for each survey
(c) Ensuring the research carried out is useful to the Partners to drive forward service improvement.
RESULTS + IMPACT / · a convincing mix of customer perception and internal performance measures
· clear line of sight to the delivery of the Single Outcome Agreement
· a full range of relevant results showing improvement over time
(a) Membership List Size. At its launch in 2003 the Panel had 818 Aberdeenshire residents as members following the first round of recruitment. Additional recruitment in 2004 and 2006 increased numbers to 1,354.
In May 2008 a further refreshment of the Panel was carried out which gave a Panel size of 1,250.
At the end of 2008 a further top-up was required to maintain membership at 1,250 – the new members were recruited from a reserve list maintained by the Consultants.This shows that the Consultants are effective in maintaining the agreed membership list size.
(b) Participation Rates The following table shows the response rates for each survey:-
Survey / Title / Date / Number
Participants / Number Responses / Response Rate
17 / Community Safety / April 2009 / Results Not Available
16 / Alcohol and Other Drugs / Feb 2009 / 1250 / 730 / 59%
15 / Jobs and the Economy / Oct 2008 / 1233 / 931 / 77%
14 / Sustainable Environment / July 2008 / 1250 / 934 / 76%
13 / Lifelong Learning / April 2008 / 1224 / 812 / 66%
12 / Home Safety / Oct 2007 / 1248 / 924 / 74%
11 / Community Wellbeing Part 2 / July 2007 / 1265 / 929 / 73%
10 / Community Wellbeing Part 1 / Mar 2007 / 1294 / 938 / 73%
9 / Learning and Leisure / Oct 2006 / 1322 / 936 / 71%
8 / Community Safety / June 2006 / 1324 / 948 / 72%
7 / Variety of Topics / Mar 2006 / 1261 / 929 / 74%
6 / Transport and Health / Nov 2005 / 1280 / 836 / 65%
5 / Jobs and Economy / June 2005 / 1310 / 943 / 72%
4 / A Sustainable Environment / Feb 2005 / 1332 / 972 / 73%
3 / Antisocial Behaviour/Consulting the Public / Nov 2004 / 1356 / 940 / 69%
2 / Lifelong Learning / Aug 2004 / 1350 / 1080 / 81%
1 / Community Wellbeing / Mar 2004 / 800 / 628 / 75%
The average participation rate is 72% which is above target although at least 4 surveys had a lower than target response rate. Reasons for lower than average response included lack of interest in subject matter and timing of the surveys which get lower response rates if research is carried out at peak holiday times.
(c) Impact. Although there are no specific measures for impact the effectiveness of the research carried out can be assessed from the way it has been used. Examples include:-
- Responses to Transport specific questions informed the development of the Aberdeenshire Local Transport Strategy;
- Responses to Community Safety Issues helped aid the Community Safety Partnership in monitoring and evaluating progress on current Community Safety Priorities;
- Questions on service delivery allow Partners to assess and improve quality;
- Questions on Health and Community Wellbeing have informed policy decision making, specifically NHS Grampian proposed changes to local health services
- Questions on Leisure and Learning helped Community Learning and Development update their approach to community based adult learning as well as informing the Best Value Review of Sports and Recreation;
- An insert on Crematoriums has helped inform the decisions on the develop of a crematoria for Aberdeenshire;
- Questions on alcohol and other drugs helped test objectives which form the Alcohol and Other Drugs Strategy for Aberdeenshire;
- Responses to questions also informed the development of the revised Community Plan (2006) the Aberdeenshire Strategic Priorities and the Aberdeenshire Single Outcome Agreement.
THE COSLA CHAIR’S AWARD
This category is awarded at the discretion of the Chair and is open to submissions under any of the seven categories. It is awarded to those submissions of exceptional standards or merit demonstrating achievements above the limits stipulated in the assessment/judging criteria for the relevant category. Alternatively, submissions can be considered which can demonstrate being conducted in exceptional circumstances.
Do you wish your submission to be considered for the Chair’s Award? / YES
In about 300 words, please highlight the reasons why this submission should be considered for the Chair’s Award:
The Aberdeenshire Citizens’ Panel was established at the beginning of 2004 as an 18 month pilot project funded by the Scottish Government. Following a review of the Panel in 2006 the Aberdeenshire Community Planning Partnership agreed to continue funding the Panel. Funding has now been secured up to at least 2013. There are now over 1250 Aberdeenshire residents on the panel and they are spread quite evenly over the six areas of Aberdeenshire. Panel members agree to complete and return surveys that are sent to them on approximately a quarterly basis and are given the opportunity to participate in up to three focus groups/workshops per year. The panel has a very high response rate of over 72% and has significantly influenced the development of the Community Planning process in Aberdeenshire as well as the development of the Single Outcome Agreement, the Aberdeenshire Strategic Priorities and local strategies such as the Alcohol and other Drugs Strategy for Aberdeenshire and the Local Transport Strategy.
By getting the opinions of Aberdeenshire residents on services and issues, the Community Planning Partners can be kept informed and aim to provide services that meet the needs of the Aberdeenshire population. Partner organisations also feedback to the Panel on how they will use the information received through a regular newsletter published after each survey.
The Panel is currently managed on behalf of the ACPP Board by IBP Strategy and Research who are also the lead consultants for the Aberdeenshire Council annual employee and residents’ surveys. This shared approach was adopted because it was felt that timing, coordination and interlinking of the survey works could be more effectively achieved by using one consultant rather than two.