Social Planning Tool

You will need to:

1. Create an authorising environment by securing executive endorsement within council. The Tool should be adopted as the official methodology for social planning.
2. Create a project co-ordinator role to set up a process to apply the Tool. They must be skilled in:
• Project management
• Communication, networking, facilitation and negotiation
• Knowledge of the workings of state and local government
• Community knowledge and some leadership standing
• Accepted as independent by all partners
• Enthusiasm!

3. Establish an internal council coordination group, led by the project coordinator, and comprised of representatives from relevant areas including:
• Strategic planning
• Social planning
• Family and children’s services
• Aged and disability
• Recreation and leisure
• Library services
• Community infrastructure.
• any other relevant area not listed here.

The coordination group will:

• Review research and community engagement evidence to identify community needs and establish council priorities
• Build partnerships and engage stakeholders and align council’s vision with other stakeholders’ objectives
• Plan and activate community building responses
• Evaluate and expand community building over time.

Partnerships are agreements organisations with similar goals, that believe they could do more together, than can be achieved by a single organisation operating alone. Partnerships create efficiencies and innovation through collaboration, shared resources, reduced duplication, and advocacy.

You will need to build strong partnerships across all levels of government, community service providers, developers and residents.

Bringing relevant parties together is not an easy task. It takes time and effort to build relationships and trust across parties that may have different processes and systems and different priorities. The key is to find common ground and a common goal.

To build a partnership you will need to:

1. Find and engage partners by mapping all stakeholders that have levers for the future well-being of your community. Stakeholders to be considered include:
• State government agencies
• Developers and major landholders
• Local–regional level health and community service providers already operating in the area
• Non-government and community organisations and social enterprises
• Community members and groups from the area or surrounds
• Education providers
• Other local governments sharing your borders.

Partnerships need the right decision-makers at the table. Make sure the people you choose:

• hold information about how to solve the problem (have expertise and ideas)
• are willing to invest time/personnel/materials (resources)
• have the authority to make decisions
• are willing to accept responsibility for, and take ownership of, the partnership.

2. Create a governance structure for the partnership that provides clear ways for different partners and stakeholders to be involved, and that outlines decision-making processes. A governance structure might include:
• a steering committee of partners to make decisions
• working groups that may include a broader range of stakeholders
• a community advisory group or mechanism, and
• a communications mechanism for those that want to stay informed and only be bought in as required.

Each partnership may require different governance and needs, and partners may change over time. Partnerships should therefore review their governance regularly. Once the governance structure, and roles and responsibilities within it, are clear, document them in a partnership agreement or MOU.

3. Create a vision together. The OECD has identified the biggest risk to a partnership is that partners interests and expectations are not aligned. Early work on a vision and shared purpose is vital.

4. Check you have the success factors for effective partnerships:
• a good broker/facilitator to build relationships
• the right decision-makers at the table with a commitment to contribute
• a clear vision and objectives that are strategically aligned to the community’s needs and aspirations
• good process for running meetings, creating work plans, and documenting activities
• ongoing motivation through champions and evaluation.

Council departments in your coordination group are well placed to provide the kind of detailed information you need for your evidence base. This will include:

1. Demographic and social outcomes data. Most councils research units now collate demographic and outcomes data into one source and many have undertaken work projecting populations and outcomes over the next few decades. You can also use developer data on sales/target markets or comparable communities can provide insight into the likely social profile of an area.
2. Service planning data. Council service planning areas will also be able to provide assessments of the community’s regional service access, service capacity, gaps and unmet demand as the community grows. They may be collating service data from a range of providers or the partnership can trigger this.
3. Qualitative research and evaluation.There are major qualitative studies of growth area communities can provide a deeper understanding the issues residents face in growth areas. Evaluation studies in community development can also shed light on the likelihood of certain activities working in your context.

It is important that activities are planned around the unique needs, interests and aspirations of residents. These can be ascertained from:

1. Community consultations. Councils have units that can help conduct engagement, and developers may also collect resident’s views. Residents should be included as a partners in the decision-making process. This does not mean they have to sit in meetings. It might instead mean running specific events to gather their feedback across the process.
2. Council visions. Councils long term visions for their broader areas – developed through extensive community consultation – should be examined (for example, Whittlesea 2040).

The coordination group will be able to give the partnership an understanding of what is being considered for the area or region to help the partnership plan and sequence activity.

This might include, for example:

• the pipeline of priority projects recommended by Infrastructure Victoria and Infrastructure Australia
• Victorian Government regional plans, priorities and policy directions
• Council plans
• forward planning by service providers
• service benchmarks such as those outlined in The Victorian community infrastructure standards for growth areas that have been developed by growth area councils with the Metropolitan Planning Authority or the City of Greater Dandenong’s Social Services Benchmarking Tool quantifies local demand for key social services.

A final source of knowledge that should be included in creating solutions is the knowledge of community experts. This might include practitioners, business leaders, innovators, or other experts in the community. They can be brought into the design process.

Start with writing an evaluation plan. It sets out the information that you’ll need to determine if the partnership’s objectives have been met. An evaluation plan is written in a table of four columns. The first two should be completed by the partnership (they are the strategic questions). The plan can then be handed over to an evaluator to complete the measurement aspects.

• Column 1. What are the partnership’s objectives? The overall purpose of evaluation is to test whether the community building initiative has met its objectives (for example, increased participation). Write your objectives in column 1.
• Column 2. What questions do we need answered? Brainstorm all the questions you would need to answer to demonstrate your objectives were met. Consider questions related to both outcomes (did participation increase?) and performance (was this the best way to deliver this? What savings or efficiencies were generated?).
• Column 3. What data/ information will we need to answer the questions?
• Column 4. What data sources will we need to create?

Once you have a plan you can determine your timelines, budget and staff requirements.

It is useful for the partnership to keep an achievement audit on the agenda of its regular meetings. It will be helpful to keep track of achievements (delivery, events, activities, media) that may otherwise be forgotten over time or with staff changes.

A guide to planning an evaluation, including templates, can be found here.