Edinburgh Partnership launches community planning review

Your chance to influence how community planning works for Edinburgh

Do you feel involved in decision-making? Are community voices being heard? What can be done to improve local democracy and community engagement? Where does the community fit into community planning?

In the snappily-titled ‘Edinburgh Partnership Review & Consultation on Governance and Community Planning Arrangements (the name alone should be enough scare a few people off!) The Edinburgh Partnership is consulting community councils, community groups and individuals on community planing in the capital.

Community planning brings together public agencies, the third sector and communities to work together to plan and deliver services which make a real difference to people’s lives.  The Edinburgh Partnership involves these partners in overseeing this work for the city.

The Edinburgh Partnership recognises that community planning processes can be improved.  In this consultation, the Edinburgh Partnership would like to hear people’s views on:

  • how communities and community groups can more effectively influence decisions about their community.
  • how the governance arrangements can be improved to:
    • make it clear how decisions are made, and who is making them, by improving the groups and structures involved
    • make partnership working stronger
    • make better connections between the different levels of partnership working in the city.

Why is The Edinburgh Partnership consulting?

In Scotland, the law says a range of public bodies must take part in community planning. This is set out in the Scottish Government’s Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015. The act was designed to strengthen the influence communities have in making decisions about their area – this is known as community planning.

Below is the current governance structure in Edinburgh, which forms the basis of the consultation. It shows many partnership and advisory groups feed into and from the Edinburgh Partnership.

There are other bodies in the city which link to and/or have a role in these arrangements but they are not part of the governance structure. These include community councils, Council committees, the Edinburgh Association of Community Councils and the Equality and Rights Network. They provide the city-wide perspective for community and interest groups. These are not included in the consultation.

To help develop the consultation the Edinburgh Partnership carried out a review with the people involved in the current partnerships and groups shown in the governance structure (as above).  Their views on what is working well and what could be better have shaped the proposals and questions in this consultation.

The Edinburgh Partnership would now like to hear YOUR views as it’s recognised that this consultation is relevant in different ways to a wide range of organisations.

Timescales

Deadline for submissions is Sunday 9th September 2018.

Your chance to influence how community planning works for Edinburgh: Take part here:

 

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Edinburgh filmmaker Kevin Pickering has scooped five awards at the Scottish Short Film Festival. Kevin’s film ‘Close to the Bone’ was nominated in five categories: Best Director, Best Cinematography, Best Sound/Music, Best Editing and Best Actor – and won them all! Continue reading Five awards for Edinburgh short film

Letters: Whaling memorial for Leith Links?

Dear Editor

I was re-running some old photographs of Leith Harbour in South Georgia in my head. Most of the pictures were of sailors having fun sledging, but there was one with a view out over the fiord and you could make out the superstructure of two catchers tied up at the dock.

I remember dad telling me that the catchers has their own dock, and how a lot of attention was given over to their servicing during the off-season. In the picture they looked small, around eighty feet or so and in remarkably good condition considering that whaling ended for the Scottish company Salvesen so many years ago.

Driving flat out into a storm chasing down a whale in such a small boat must have been quite a ride, not to say dangerous, although much more so for the whale.

Maybe they should bring one of these catchers back to Edinburgh and park it in the Meadows of Leith Links as a reminder of when men fished for whales.

Sadly whaling still goes on, when will we ever learn?

Walter Hamilton

by email

Fire Service welcomes search dogs from across the UK

The UK’s largest fire and rescue service played host to specialist dog units from across the country last weekend.

Highly trained canines from fire and police services across Britain descended on the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service’s National Training Centre in Cambuslang from Friday, July 13 until Sunday, July 15.

The units, including International Search and Rescue (ISAR) and SFRS’ own urban search and rescue dog Diesel, came together for a joint training exercise led by ISAR.

A series of scenarios and exercises were set up to prepare the dogs for possible future incidents which included searching for casualties, agility training and even being lowered down the side of buildings in harnesses.

The handlers were also given a canine first aid training session by ISAR vet Francisco Ivens Brandāo.

Units from as far as London made the trip to Glasgow for the exercises.

SFRS instructor and dog handler Gary Carroll said: “The event brought fire and rescue colleagues from across the country together to share learnings and experiences.

“Across the weekend we had several challenging scenarios led by different instructors which allowed handlers to further train and expose their search dogs to new experiences.

“It was an extremely worthwhile event to arrange as many of the handlers – including myself can now add new training methods which will further challenge the skills of both ourselves and our dogs.”