Community Planning Overload

I spent a great year working on Compact 10 with my colleagues Sarah Wade and Milind Kolhatkar, consulting with voluntary organisations and developing the Compact Strategic Framework. 

Sarah and I started on the same day – naïve to the world of Community Planning in Edinburgh – issued with a “little” reading list we were soon knee deep in strategies and acronyms.  How were we ever to understand this landscape…how could the left hand ever know what the right hand was doing! Did anyone understand this?

On the fourth day we took the decision to ditch the reading and learn on our way……it was a simple case of survival.  What we did know was you had to have the community in community planning, and that was never going to change.

A few wall size friezes with post its and wiggly arrows later,and 4 years,  I can easily talk you through community planning with all its NPs, LLTs, LIPS and VSFs – I even have a bit of a handle on how they inter relate and how they influence each other.

…..and guess what just when I have a handle on it – its up for review – and people are still asking where is the community in Community Planning!

Name: Denise Horn

Organisation: EVOC

Job Title: Senior Development Officer

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Over the years we’ve been involved in a multitude of campaigns, protests and projects in response to the needs of Edinburgh’s citizens, but not without the collaboration and involvement of citizens and organisations across the City. We want to piece together a picture of the third sector in Edinburgh from the voices of the people that have been right at the heart of it. Do you remember marching for tenants rights? Fighting to save the public laundries? Were you involved with community transport, or improvements in mental health services? Do you volunteer or fundraise for a cause close to your heart? We’d love for you to share your story with us.

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