Commentary on Sections Community planning
19.Section 4 defines “community planning”, “community planning partner” and “community planning partnership”. Community planning is planning that is carried out for the purpose of improving the achievement of outcomes resulting from, or contributed to by, the provision of services delivered by or on behalf of the community planning partners. Subsection (3) states that these local outcomes must be consistent with national outcomes which the Scottish Ministers determine under section 1(1), or as revised under section 2(5)(c). The persons listed in schedule 1, together with local authorities, are the community planning partners. The community planning partnership comprises these partners when they participate together in community planning.
20.Subsection (6) requires a community planning partnership to consider which community bodies are likely to be able to contribute to community planning, having regard in particular to which of those bodies represent the interests of persons who experience inequalities of outcome which result from socio-economic disadvantage. The community planning partnership must make all reasonable efforts to secure the participation of those community bodies in community planning, and to take steps to enable them to participate in community planning to the extent they wish to participate.
21.Subsection (7) enables the Scottish Ministers to amend the list of community planning partners in schedule 1 by regulations. Subsection (8) states that the regulations may provide that a community planning partner may participate in community planning for a specific purpose, where participation is required in relation to some of that partner’s functions but not others.