New resources for Community Councils

A new set of guidance documents for Community Councils have been published by the Improvement Service, Scottish Community Development Centre (SCDC), COSLA and the Scottish Government.

The documents, which include a Model Scheme for the Establishment of Community Councils and Good Practice Guidance for how Community Councils should operate, were launched last week. Local Authorities can use this set of documents as the basis for their local versions which set out how community councils will run in their area.

Community councillors and local authority Community Council Liaison Officers (CCLOs) were involved in reviewing the existing Model Scheme and guidance document at a series of meetings in 2021 and 2022. These documents needed to be updated to take into account technological changes in the way Community Councils are meeting, conducting their finances and engaging with their communities.

There is some useful good practice guidance included, containing the latest information on topics such as planning, community empowerment and GDPR.

We felt that it is important that the key documents are available in accessible formats and that these should be available at a national level, to ensure that everyone within our communities can access and use the documents. The Good Practice Guidance for Community Councils, the Code of Conduct and the Standing Orders are now available in a range of formats.

There’s a video with BSL and captions, large print versions of the documents, text only versions that are suitable for braille conversion, and Easy Read. 

The Easy Read versions contain all of the information but break it down into small chunks, with explanations of some of the terms that are used. 

This helps make the information more accessible for people with learning disabilities, people who have memory problems, people who speak English as their second language and anyone who finds reading difficult. 

It can also be useful for people who are anxious or stressed and struggling to take in information because of that or those who have to take in information in a hurry.

All of the documents are also available in Gaelic, and other language translations can be requested.

Access the set of documents on the Community Councils website.