Community Planning - call for views

Scottish Enterprise is Scotland's national economic development agency and a non-departmental public body of the Scottish Government. To deliver a significant, lasting effect on the Scottish economy, we work with partners in the public and private sectors to find and exploit the best opportunities.

Scottish Enterprise is a statutory partner in 24 Community Planning Partnerships, with either Highlands and Islands Enterprise or South of Scotland Enterprise being the primary Enterprise Agency partner on the other seven. Unlike the other statutory partners in community planning, with the exception of the local authority, our customer base, as an enterprise agency, is the business community, which means that the relative overlap between our area of responsibility and the priorities of individual CPPs is, usually, somewhat limited. As recognised in the Community Empowerment Act guidance, this creates proportionately limited scope for collaboration involving SE.

In the years since the Community Empowerment Act, there has been a great deal of development at the regional level, with the creation of City and Growth Deals and the parallel creation of regional economic partnerships. Scottish Enterprise has played a significant role in these collaborations. The way in which these regional structures, along with national coordination groups such as the Business Support Partnership which brings together national and local bodies, relate to community planning partnerships is evolving at different speeds across the country and it would be good to make these links clearer.

Tackling inequalities is at the core of community planning, although the guidance does recognise that there are situations where this can be set aside. The majority of the focus areas for inequalities, e.g. health or fuel poverty, are not areas in which SE has a locus but where we do, for example the Dundee Living Wage City Initiative, we are fully engaged. SE was itself an early adopter of Fair Work First, requiring businesses receiving support to commit to fair work principles, including paying the living wage.

In relation to the cost of doing business crisis, SE’s primary focus for collaboration is the Business Support Partnership, which includes Business Gateway alongside the enterprise and skills agencies to coordinate our response.

In the field of economic development, more and more of the planning of outcomes are delivered by alternative and more appropriate structures such as City and Region Deals and Regional Economic Partnerships. There are also, for major challenges such as Covid or the cost of doing business, national coordination bodies such as the Business Support Partnership, bringing together national and local partners to ensure a consistent approach.

Even at local level, due to the lack of locus on economic development among a wide range of CPP partners, SE will often find any collaboration is planned directly between us and relevant partners rather than at the CPP level.

During Covid, business support functions were coordinated via regional Business Response Partnerships, including SE.

The existing guidance for CPPs included a consideration, in the section on shared leadership, for multiple CPPs to look at collaboration across CPP boundaries where this would contribute to improved outcomes or greater efficiency. This section should be strengthened to take account of the regional economic development structures that have formed in the years since the passing of the Community Empowerment Act, and ensure there is no duplication of activity.

As stated in relation to earlier questions, economic development is an area of limited scope in CPPs due to their being only a few partners, SE, the local authority and SDS in some areas, with a locus in that field.

As discussed above in relation to the guidance, it would be useful to recognise regional structures such as City and Region Deals and Regional Economic Partnerships which bring together national and local partners. Given the changing ways of working this has brought about it would be useful to review the statutory membership of CPPs, including in relation to those bodies with a duty to facilitate community planning, to ensure it reflects the appropriate level at which issues are discussed and decisions taken.