About the South Wiltshire Strategic Alliance

What is a Local Strategic Partnership?

The Local Government Act 2000 introduced a duty for all local authorities to set up Local Strategic Partnerships (LSPs) with the aim of improving the environmental, social and economic well being of the area. LSPs should include representation from all the key public sector organisations and businesses in an area, as well as the voluntary and community sectors (e.g. local charities, churches etc).

There is a Local Strategic Partnership for the district. This is the South Wiltshire Strategic Alliance, which is coordinated by Salisbury District Council. The partnership was set up in 1998, in advance of government legislation. There is also a Local Strategic Partnership for the county, the Wiltshire Strategic Board, which is coordinated by Wiltshire County Council. The Alliance is represented on the Wiltshire Strategic Board by the independent chair of the Board. The Leader of Salisbury District Council also has a seat on WiSB.

Neighbouring local strategic partnerships include:

How does the South Wiltshire Strategic Alliance work?

The way the Alliance works was changed in 2007 in order to make it ‘fit for purpose’. There were many reasons to reshape it, such as the Local Government White Paper which strengthens the role of Local Strategic Partnerships as the ‘partnership of partnerships’ for an area. LSPs are also becoming more delivery focused due to their key role in delivering on Local Area Agreements and we wanted to ensure that the Alliance was able to deliver. Another reason was to bring community planning and the local strategic planning processes closer together, as set out in recent Government guidance. Finally, we wanted to ensure that the Alliance was more accountable for what it does, which is why we have set up new bodies such as the Community Forum

The role of the partnership was agreed in 2006 as follows:

  1. Plan-making and priority-setting
  2. Implementation of the Community Strategy action plan.
  3. Monitoring progress against the Community Plans and Community Strategy
  4. Influencing through a collective voice.
  5. Identifying opportunities for joint working locally.

The structures which will deliver this are illustrated in our Adobe PDFSWSA structure chart 17kb.

You can also download the Adobe PDFSWSA governance framework 80kb

Due to local government reorganisation, for the period September 2007 to April 2009, the Alliance will focus less on delivery of projects and more on overseeing the transition to new partnership structures. For this reason it has been decided to suspend the setting up of a Coordination Executive as announced in early 2007. Instead, there will be an independent chair for the Board and a focus on change management. A key part of the Wiltshire County Council unitary bid that was approved by the government involves setting up partnerships at a local level, called Community Area Partnerships. The Alliance will be pivotal in this process in south Wiltshire.

What do each of the Alliance bodies do?

Community Forum

The Community Forum meets once a year. It is a fully inclusive body with a large membership, providing an opportunity to engage the representatives of additional organisations and other stakeholders beyond those represented on the Board. Its role is to keep an overview of the Community Strategy and be a forum for two-way communication and consultation. The first meeting of the Community Forum is planned for early 2008. Please contact us if you wish to be added to the invitation list.

Board

The Board meets six times a year and is responsible for the overall direction, priority-setting and monitoring progress against priorities on a regular basis. It is made up of the most strategic officer for each partner organisation and key elected members. The Chair of the Coordination Executive and Partnership Manager attend Board meetings in an advisory capacity.

Thematic Partnerships

  • Community Safety Executive
  • South Wiltshire Diversity Partnership
  • Social Inclusion working group
  • Strategic Housing Board

Close links will also be maintained with the following key delivery partnerships at district and county level:

A Partnership Manager whose post is funded by Salisbury District Council coordinates the Partnership on behalf of the council. You can contact the Partnership Manager by email at swsa@salisbury.gov.uk or by phone on 01722 434641.

Who sits on the Alliance Board?

Contact details:

Telephone:
01722 434223

email:
swsa@salisbury.gov.uk

Postal address:
Community Initiatives
Salisbury District Council
PO Box 2117
Salisbury
SP2 2DF