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This first Community Plan is both a stock-take of what is happening now and a look ahead to how the partner agencies hope to improve services over the next few years. It also includes information gleaned from 12 public meetings, from the Citizens panel , a Residents' survey, Business Consultation, About Guildford and the Surrey Advertiser's 'Building a Better Guildford' campaign. Over 800 people took part in the public meetings, and some 250 voluntary and community organisations have been involved.
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It incorporates input from Guildford Borough Council, Surrey County Council, Surrey Police, Guildford and Waverley Primary Care Trust, (working in partnership with Woking Area Primary Care Trust, which covers Ash, Ash Vale, Tongham and Pirbright), parish councils, the business community, faith groups, the voluntary sector and hundreds of other local interest groups. The research showed how artificial are the demarcations between areas such as culture and health, transport and environment or health and environment. They all impact on each other. And it revealed how services such as education play an extraordinarily wide and varied role throughout the community, from vocational and leisure learning through to vital public health education.
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This comprehensive consultation won the praise of the National Improvement and Development Agency which commented in its recent review of Guildford Borough Council: "You have made an excellent start on your community planning process. It has been very well thought through." Special mention was made of the innovative means of consultation such as the Surrey Advertiser campaign.
This Community Plan gives the Local Strategic Partnership - the collective body that will be monitoring and overseeing its implementation - something to work with, a framework that can be developed, because the challenges facing Guildford will inevitably change. While the action plans need flexibility to adapt and respond, this represents an agreed starting point.
Putting the Plan into Action
The work really starts now. The Local Strategic Partnership (LSP) had its inaugural meeting in February 2003 and it is still finalising its membership. It currently comprises Guildford Borough Council (GBC), Surrey County Council (SCC), Surrey Police, Guildford and Waverley Primary Care Trust (PCT), Guildford Community Learning Partnership, Guildford Association of Voluntary Services, Guildford Business Forum, Guildford Youth Council, Guildford Environment Forum, and a representative of faiths, but it is important that all sectors of the community feel they have representation.
The Local Strategic Partnership will incorporate an Executive and a Community Advisory Forum. The Executive will oversee the work of the specific Action Groups that are being set up to tackle the tasks of producing programmes, targets and timetables for projects and initiatives within the nine areas of the Community Plan.
The public will be able to feed into these Action Groups and there is scope for more formal consultation as necessary. All the partners are keen for the whole community to become involved and play an ongoing role in the development of the plan. |