How does this impact on Community Wellbeing? I am in a community council and we are pretty fed up that the views of the villagers, which we gather via our own questionnaires in our own time, are ignored by the council. It is said the Scottish government wants community engagement. Unless you just want suggestions which you can ignore give real power to community councils. If they truley represent the community views, they should have the same powers as their English counterparts. If wanted I can give example after example where no cognisance has been given to requests/suggestions by the community via our CC. It might help you understand the frustration and see why so many areas don’t have enough volunteers to form a CC, but also see how this could be an easy way to engage Why should the Committee focus on this as part of their future work? This really is a way to get community engagement. We know what our community wants as we poll them, send out questionnaires, have monthly meetings etc. And, importantly we are apolitical. It is a real way to engage that is being ignored.
This is an easy way to get true engagement. Most communities have CCs
I wholly support this idea. Being on a Community Council (CC) is frustrating and rewarding but not in equal measure! As a CC we have no power to ensure our community’s wishes and needs are enacted upon. If the Government wants true engagement with its communities then it must give them the same rights as their counterparts in other parts of the UK.
Many CCs in this locality have folded. This is because whilst community councillors work hard for their communities there work is frustrated by bureaucracy and inefficiency. This effects their moral and wellbeing and they despair and resign. This then breeds a similar reaction in the communities they serve. Giving power To CCs would ensure morale and wellbeing in the community is top of the agenda.
This is a good idea. These folk have no vested interest and are elected. They live in the community they serve (As a requirement for election) and are bound by rules which say they MUST represent the community’s majority Consensus. That way communities can vote on issues which are then taken forward by community councils who must go with the majority. Good idea to get genuine representation
Our CC is largely unelected and unrepresentative. The Locality Partnership is encourag more community engagement.CC are actively not engaging with the Locality despite having a seat on it, the CC effectively disenfranchising the community! Lot of members on too many cttees and thus have vested interests,in our experience CC is not healthy.The Locality Partnership is catching peoples imagination;getting good participation for networking, participatory budgeting. People have a sense of ownership.
Community Councils do not reflect the communities they purport to represent. They are dying out in line with the age profiles of community councillors. Most people know nothing about them. They should be dibanded.
This content is created by the open source Your Priorities citizen engagement platform designed by the non profit Citizens Foundation