Shetland Partnership Annual Report 2022/23 - Next Steps

There is a duty to determine whether any further Locality Plans are required, in addition to Shetland’s Islands with Small Populations Locality Plan. In order to assist partners to determine whether there are any localities in Shetland facing disadvantage in comparison to other areas, the Community Planning Support Team analysed indicators at a locality level in early 2023. This includes data related to: population and demographics, economic outcomes, education, health, housing and the environment. It was previously agreed by the Shetland Partnership, that Shetland’s Localities should be: Yell, Unst and Fetlar; Shetland North; Shetland West; Shetland Central; Whalsay and Skerries; Lerwick and Bressay; and Shetland South.

The evidence base did not show that one Shetland locality experiences a significant level of disadvantage compared to the others. Shetland’s communities are diverse, experiencing a mix of worse and better socio-economic outcomes, between localities, but also within localities. The data showed that poorer outcomes were not significant at the spatial level of localities, datazones, or within datazones. In other words, those localities for which the data shows communities experience worse than average socio-economic outcomes, also have communities, areas within communities, and households achieving above average outcomes. Conversely, those localities for which the data shows communities experience better outcomes than the Shetland average, have areas within these communities and at a household level, experiencing worse than average outcomes.

The Management and Leadership Team of the Shetland Partnership agreed that a further Locality Plan would not be necessary.  Instead, Shetland’s approach to locality planning will be achieved through the new Shetland Partnership Delivery Plan.

The locality data was gathered initially to make a decision on Locality Plans. A next step will be for Locality Profiles to be developed from the locality indicators with the purposes including service redesign, local plans and seeking external funding – facilitating collaboration between communities and services to improve outcomes.