Shetland Partnership Network Thursday 27th February 2025

The event covered feedback from the Shetland Partnership Place-Based Approach consultation, and the ongoing Shetland Place Standard consultation. Attendees also reviewed a Communications Strategy to enhance awareness of community planning and the Partnership's website.

The Shetland Partnership Network aims to help partners create a sense of shared ownership of community planning and to create a safe environment for open and honest conversations around the challenges and opportunities to tackle inequalities in Shetland. The Network brings together representatives of all community planning partners in Shetland and offers opportunities for information sharing, developing ideas and building relationships.

 The Chair of the meeting introduced Mark Ratter, Partnership Officer from Shetland Islands Council’s Community Planning and Development Team, who gave a presentation on the Shetland Place-Based Approach. This included a summary of feedback from partners on a key document outlining the Approach in Shetland, and how this feedback has since been incorporated into the document. It is hoped that this document will be used to inform the Place-Based Approach amongst partners and other stakeholders in Shetland.

Peter Mogridge, Planning Officer from the Council’s Planning Team then gave an update on the Shetland Place Standard – ‘Our Place – Your Say’ project. Last carried out in 2016, the project aims to gather opinions on 15 themed topics, including transport, housing, community safety and local facilities and services.  The new survey, using the Place Standard Tool, will refresh the previous information and aims to capture a new dataset that will support future planning of public services by the Council and other public bodies.  It was an opportunity to find out how the findings will be shared and can be used by partners.

Following a Networking coffee break, Leanne Gear, Partnership Officer from the Council’s Community Planning and Development Team, gave an overview of a draft Communications Plan and Strategy to cover the period 2025-2028. This covered what the Shetland Partnership hopes to achieve, and how this will be implemented in stages. Attendees then broke out into groups to discuss the Communications Plan and whether it was something their organisation could help to implement.

Representatives of 9 partners took part. Feedback from the event was positive, with attendees stating that the presentations were useful, and that it was a good chance to have discussions with others. Attendees thought it was valuable to discuss the survey and how to engage via communications.

The next Shetland Partnership Network will take place on Thursday 24th April 2025.