The Dundee Partnership has implemented community planning in the city for over 20 years and has an even longer record of joint working to achieve economic development and regeneration. Our community planning arrangements have evolved in line with changing national expectations and through capturing the lessons of local experience.
The Dundee Partnership is proud of the reputation it has gained for the positive nature of our collaboration. We have regularly assessed our effectiveness and worked closely with the Improvement Service through their CPP self-assessment model to enhance our governance through a partnership wide improvement plan.
The creation of Health and Social Care Partnerships, the integration of Community Justice and the formation of new bodies like Leisure and Culture, Dundee have all led to new relationships. This provided an opportunity to rationalise and refresh strategic relationships between partners within the Dundee Partnership and resulted in the creation of Executive Boards in 2018. These Executive Boards have overall responsibility for the delivery of improved outcomes within their theme. They are expected to satisfy the ambitions contained in the Scottish Government guidance with partner agencies making demonstrable commitments to resourcing the delivery of joint improvement priorities; redesigning and integrating services; making a decisive shift to prevention; and articulating and implementing a closer relationship to localities.
Dundee Partnership - Structure
As part of our commitment to ongoing improvement, we will concentrate on critical areas of public service reform agreed with the Scottish Government, including a decisive shift to prevention and joint resourcing between and across partners and sectors.
Decisive Shift to Prevention
The Dundee Partnership has adopted a framework for prevention that offers a common understanding and a definition of the ‘decisive shift’ we aim to achieve. The framework acknowledges the role of universal services in promoting positive outcomes for the city but reflects the journey towards negative outcomes experienced by many in our communities. The impact of escalating demands for crisis services while budgets are limited is represented, and early intervention and recovery are presented as the means by which partners can jointly deliver greater prevention.
Joint Resourcing
The Christie Commission identified that demands on public services will increase dramatically due to demographic issues and from not adequately addressing the causes of disadvantage and vulnerability. To meet these challenges, the whole system of public service should become more efficient by reducing duplication and sharing services wherever possible.
Collaborative working with our neighbouring authorities is not a new concept for Dundee, with several very successful partnerships running currently e.g. Roads & Street Lighting Partnerships, Tayside Procurement Consortium and Tayside Scientific Services. Tayside Contracts is our most established model of collaboration, having been in existence for 20 years. This is a commercially based shared arrangement that operates under a Joint Committee of elected members from each of the constituent councils, for the provision of catering, cleaning, roads maintenance, vehicle maintenance and winter maintenance.
More recently, the Tay Cities Region Joint Committee was established to manage the principal levers of economic growth across local government boundaries. The Tay Cities Joint Committee is responsible for:
- Regional Economic Development
- Cross-boundary Strategic Planning
- Regional Transport Planning and delivery (including Public Transport) in Angus, Dundee and Perth & Kinross
The Tayside Plan for Children, Young People and Families 2017-2020 was the first joint plan to be produced in Angus, Dundee and Perth and Kinross. It reflected shared leadership towards multi-agency cross-border collaboration in the planning, management, commissioning, delivery and evaluation of services to children, young people and families. The Plan, developed by the three Councils, NHS Tayside, Police Scotland, Health and Social Care Partnerships and other organisations ensured a consistent approach towards agreed priorities and an absolute focus on improving outcomes for all children, young people and families. The Plan has since been reviewed and is currently being delivered through the 2023-26 Plan, in line with national timescales.
Protecting People
In Dundee, there is a well-established framework within which the range of multi-agency supports and interventions to protect people of all ages is planned and coordinated. This includes:
- Dundee Child Protection Committee;
- Dundee Adult Support and Protection Committee;
- Dundee Violence Against Women Partnership;
- Dundee Alcohol and Drug Partnership;
- Dundee Suicide Prevention Group and;
- Tayside Multi Agency Public Protection Arrangements (MAPPA)
These committees / partnerships provide strategic leadership in respect of local public protection and relevant care and support developments and discharge their duties through the implementation of individual improvement/strategic plans. The Protecting People Team’s vision is that Dundee’s people will have the protection they need, when they need it, to keep them safe from harm.
Equalities & Diversity
A central theme of our City Plan is a commitment to tackling the inequalities that exist within our society as a result of socio-economic disadvantage. People can also face barriers because of their race, sex, age, disability, sexual orientation or religion or belief. In delivering this plan, the Partnership will seek to tackle inequality in the city in whatever form it manifests itself, through clear and coordinated approaches.
The Partnership is acutely aware that the outcomes experienced by equalities groups with protected characteristics are often poorer than for the city as a whole. We are also conscious of particular issues addressed by individual groups and want to work more closely with our colleagues in the third sector to develop new forms of engagement that can more effectively respond to their needs.
