Aberdeenshire Local Learning Communities Partnership Self Evaluation 2023 - 2024

An update on community learning and development work happening across Aberdeenshire in 2024.

Aberdeenshire 6 LLCPs' Mapping of work aligned to 4 key priorities

The information gathered shows that across the Shire there are a variety of projects, and provision is being developed and delivered under the 4 key priorities of the Aberdeenshire Community Learning and Development Plan 2021 – 2024. A sample of the work currently taking place across the 6 Aberdeenshire LLCPs can be found below.

Partners continue to discuss gaps, needs and ways of working more effectively in their areas. Please see the table below detailing some of the partnership work across the 6 areas. For more information please contact the Local Learning Community Partnership Lead Practitioner for your area.

Please see below Feedback from Partners across the 6 LLCP areas using 'How Good is our Community Learning and Development?', focusing on 3.2 Partnership working quality indicator (Using challenging questions 1, 3, 4 and 7).

How Good is our Community Learning and Development. 4th Edition. Education Scotland

Challenge Questions: 3.2 Partnership working

1. How well do we actively seek out, promote, support and respond positively to partnerships that can deliver better outcomes for individuals, groups and communities?
2. How well do leaders at all levels initiate, negotiate and resource collaborative working to improve outcomes?
3. How effective is the local authority in developing, sustaining and supporting partnerships to develop and take forward priorities within CLD plans and strategies?
4. How clearly developed and well understood are the vision and aims of each of the partnerships to which we contribute?
5. How well do we ensure that within each partnership the roles and responsibilities of each member or organisation are clearly understood by everyone?
6. How well do we ensure that all partners are equally committed to delivering the intended outcomes that a partnership is working to achieve?
7. How effectively do we jointly plan, monitor and evaluate within partnerships?
8. How clear are we about what added value each partnership brings and what difference it makes to learners and communities?
9. How well do we attribute, report and share success within and across partnerships?
10. How well do we ensure community and learner voice is representative, heard and valued within our partnerships?
11. How well do we work with partners to forward plan and prepare to meet changing needs?
12. How successfully do we undertake joint learning and development activities that share and develop skills, information, knowledge and expertise across partnerships, resulting in improved outcomes for learners and communities?

Marr LLCP Evaluation - challenge questions from 3.2 Quality Indicator Partnership Working

Challenge question 1. How well do we actively seek out, promote, support and respond positively to partnerships that can deliver better outcomes for individuals, groups and communities?

We are still in transition. It’s early days.

Marr is enormous with very different communities so there are real challenges in bringing together a partnership that is working both at a Marr level and also at the level of these different communities.

People aren’t always aware that they are working in partnerships. There are different levels of this – with one partner and then with the whole partnership taking decisions and actions together.

Challenge question 3. How effective is the local authority in developing, sustaining and supporting partnerships to develop and take forward priorities within CLD plans and strategies?

I’m not impressed with the change from 16 to 6 LLCPs.

Decisions not always made clearly.

People need to be made to feel included.

Challenge question 4. How clearly developed and well understood are the vision and aims of each of the partnerships to which we contribute?

I’ve not taken time to properly look at this.

Good understanding of the 4 priorities.

The term community learning and development is not understood by everyone and also seems to be what the CLD council team does. We need to be careful with language so that a broader range of people and organisations can understand themselves as part of the partnership.

Challenge question 7. How effectively do we jointly plan, monitor and evaluate?

There are challenges here in working between different partners who may have different systems and expectations around planning and evaluation. We need to do some work as a group to develop a common framework. This could be a supported discussion – Continuous Professional Development (CPD) opportunity to see how other organisations plan and evaluate.

We need to know what the expectations of evaluation are at a strategic level.

Kincardine and Mearns LLCP Evaluation challenge questions from 3.2 Quality Indicator Partnership Working

Challenge question 1. How well do we actively seek out, promote, support and respond positively to partnerships that can deliver better outcomes for individuals, groups and communities?

This is already done in local settings, reliance on working in partnerships to reach people through initiatives, always developing and improving, varying degrees of success. Kincardine and Mearns Local Learning Communities Partnership has improved outcomes through partnerships. Challenging post Covid, Local Learning Communities Partnership.

Challenge question 3. How effective is the local authority in developing, sustaining and supporting partnerships to develop and take forward priorities within CLD plans and strategies?

Early stages of development, moving from sixteen to six has been challenging. No evaluation of the impact of this. Local partners work well, however, some are unable to attend due to the structure. Disagreement of decision made by the local authority, and new structure does not assist grass roots work.

Challenge question 4. How clearly developed and well understood are the vision and aims of each of the partnerships to which we contribute?

Could be Local Learning Communities Partnership or other partnerships. Gives people a better understanding of what people do, good idea. On whether the vision and aims are clear, group agreed that the language can be complicated and needs to be easier to understand. Training needs for all partners. Possibility of inviting people to one off session to discuss their work.

Challenge question 7. How effectively do we jointly plan, monitor and evaluate?

Members of the group have recently done joint planning, however, they are unsure how that would work with a larger group. Questions raised regarding strategic expectations and priorities. Some of the group are already working together. Evaluating and monitoring is done differently for partners. Quality of relationships and impact.

Banff and Buchan LLCP Evaluation challenge questions from 3.2 Quality Indicator Partnership Working

Challenge question 1. How well do we actively seek out, promote, support and respond positively to partnerships that can deliver better outcomes for individuals, groups and communities?

As an LLCP, we are still in the early stages of developing the partnership.

As an LLCP, we have positively identified areas of work with the partnership which are as follow:

• Diversionary Project / Youth Hub
• Detached work at the Vinery.
• Just Ask project.

Challenge question 3 How effective is the local authority in developing, sustaining and supporting partnerships to develop and take forward priorities within CLD plans and strategies?

The local authority is very supportive in developing the partnership and taking our localised priorities forward.

The authority has been very flexible in it's approach developing the partnership.

Going forward we should look to invite more partners into the partnership to develop it further and reach local outcomes.

Challenge question 4. How clearly developed and well understood are the vision and aims of each of the partnerships to which we contribute?

As an LLCP, we have joint objectives and aims of the partnership going forward with identified priorities.

Challenge question 7. How effectively do we jointly plan, monitor and evaluate?

As a partnership, we feel that we jointly plan our pieces of work. We have focussed on Just ASK and the Diversionary Project. Going forward through the use of engage we will monitor our progress.

Formartine LLCP Evaluation challenge questions from 3.2 Quality Indicator Partnership Working

Challenge question 1. How well do we actively seek out, promote, support and respond positively to partnerships that can deliver better outcomes for individuals, groups and communities?

Partnership arrangement has been good to date with good working relationship, sharing of ideas, resources etc. benefitted both parties and ultimately allowed both parties to better reach targets and support individuals, groups and communities.

Challenge question 3 How effective is the local authority in developing, sustaining and supporting partnerships to develop and take forward priorities within CLD plans and strategies?

Well documented and shared.

Challenge question 4. How clearly developed and well understood are the vision and aims of each of the partnerships to which we contribute?

Has been very efficient during partnership working to-date but re-structuring (change of staff and targeted working areas) within CLD will set things back as we build new relationships, work out new partnership opportunities.

Challenge question 7. How effectively do we jointly plan, monitor and evaluate?

Good pre-activity planning, sharing of ideas and aims. Post activity evaluation completed.

Aberdeenshire 6 LLCPs' Mapping of work aligned to 4 key priorities

The information gathered shows that across the Shire there are a variety of projects and provision is being developed and delivered under the four key priorities of Aberdeenshire Community Learning and Development Plan 2021 – 2024. A sample of the work that is currently taking place across the 6 Aberdeenshire LLCPs can be found below.

We have found that there is a stronger focus on Key Priority 1: Improving health and wellbeing through community learning and development, however, partners are acknowledging that the key priorities interlink and by delivering a project under Key priority 1 they are also working on the resilience and community capacity building under Key priority 3.

When partners discussed gaps and ways of working more effectively, the majority acknowledged changes in partnership working post Covid, resulting in some partners not being aware of other partnership groups’ work at a local and area level. This identified the need to do a Mapping exercise to recognise the work and aims of organisations and other partnership groups across the 6 areas.

The 4 LLCP Priorities

Method

In order to progress the agreed change in the LLCP structure from 16 networks to 6 areas, we delivered 6 x 2 hour Introductions to LLCPs sessions in the 6 new LLCP areas.

6 CLD leads have been assigned to support each of the LLCP areas.

The sessions were planned and developed to be delivered in person at a central location to all partners that deliver community learning and development approaches in each area.

The agenda:

• Welcome and Introductions.
• What is a Local Learning Partnership and where does it come from?
• Create Terms of Reference.
• Current work taking place.
• Identify gaps / commonalities against 4 key priorities within ALCP plan 2021- 2024.
• Shared Project . Where can we make a difference jointly, collaboratively?
• Evaluation / Close

We have found that in each area we had very high number of partners when grouping by the new 6 LLCP areas and not by the previous 16 local networks' LLCPs. Due to the time of the delivery of the sessions a high number of partners could not attend the initial meeting in June so a further online session was offered to all partners on 15/08/23 with 24 additional partners from across the six areas attending. A total of 61 partners attended and participated in the sessions.