A North East council is looking to review its community engagement services to ensure support continues to be provided for residents.
Durham County Council’s Cabinet will next week be asked to note progress into a review of the authority’s community engagement services, including its 14 Area Action Partnerships.
For the last 12 years AAPs have been one of the ways for the council to engage with the public on a local level and have helped to fund over 10,000 community-based projects.
However, as national and local agendas have changed over recent years, the council wants to ensure its community engagement continues to meet future needs of communities, councillors and key partners.
The review into the council’s community engagement will look at areas which could potentially be enhanced to ensure the service continues to deliver support for the people of County Durham.
One area that the review will focus on is how communities can better influence decision-making in the future by determining local needs and aspirations through engagement.
The council will be appointing an independent third-party to carry out the review, which will include engagement with AAP boards and previous members to gather insight from the past 12 years of operation.
The review will begin between April and May with the findings to be shared in the autumn.
Cabinet will hear more details of the review when it meets on Wednesday, 16 March at 9.30am.