Clackmannanshire Council Online

Transformation Space Moving Forward

Clackmannanshire Council’s Transformation Space has moved one step closer to delivering much needed community led change with £1m funding from the Scottish Government’s Invest to Save Fund. 

Councillors heard an update at yesterday’s Council meeting about the ambitious vision to transform how the Council operates and delivers its services, to put community voice at the heart of decision making.

This new approach will see a panel of local people working together to solve long-standing local problems and decide how vital funding is spent. This will remove barriers caused by separate public sector budgets and enable funding to flow directly into the solutions that matter most to local communities.

The process focuses on prevention and early action, based on ideas from the Christie Commission. It aims to change how public services work in Clackmannanshire and reduce the need for costly, repeated interventions.

Alleviating homelessness is likely to be the initial focus, as well as supporting people with their mental health and wellbeing. This £1m investment will be supplemented with initial Council pilot funds and the Transformation Space will be also seek to leverage additional private funds. 

An entirely new way of delivering change and transforming services, this funding will unlock innovative solutions, with communities working alongside partners including What Matters to You to dive deep into the heart of community led solutions. This will be achieved by:

• Creating a flexible pool of funding and a strategy driven by community voice.
• Prioritising the views of those who will use and be supported by services and ensure their leadership throughout.
• Placing a renewed focus on early intervention and prevention.
• Allocating funding differently through partnership working and encouraging real collaboration between public, private and third sectors.
• Learning lessons fast and adapting the approach as required.

Cllr Ellen Forson, Leader of Clackmannanshire Council, said: “This funding is a ringing endorsement of the hard work by everyone at Clackmannanshire Council, our partners and our communities. 

“With this support we can accelerate the most ambitious community voice-led transformation in Scotland. We will continue to build on existing initiatives that have been extremely successful, like the Clackmannanshire Make it Happen Fund, which has already begun to show positive impacts across our communities and will generate significant savings in future years.”

The plans have been developed with support from The Hunter Foundation and have been informed by other innovative work across the UK and internationally. This includes local success in the Council’s well-established Family Wellbeing Partnership, STRIVE (Safeguarding Through Rapid Intervention) and What Matters to You.