Leisure and Cultural Policy

East Ayrshire Council’s Leisure Services are linked by the common theme of improving East Ayrshire’s residents’ quality of life. The diverse services are continually upheld by many external organisations as examples of best practice. This is equally true of our internal partners in East Ayrshire and within the Council. We continually strive to maintain this exemplary position. To do so, we require to learn about the best practice in other areas and the work of the Scottish Executive and other organisations.

It is important that all of Leisure Services’ employees are aware of current strategies, policies and the political background relating to their area of work. This means that staff are in a position to think of creative new ways of delivering services, drawing on evidence and the priorities of the Scottish Executive, elected members and residents. If we can do this we will stay at the forefront of leisure service delivery and continue to deliver services that meet local needs. These web pages will be used to communicate new developments and help individuals engage with national strategies and legislation (laws).

Leisure Services are already demonstrating to partners that we are competent in achieving wider goals. We need to draw confidence from this, continually pushing this cause showing that Leisure services are a vital foundation in delivering East Ayrshire Council’s and Community Planning Partners Vision that:

“East Ayrshire will be a place with strong, vibrant communities where everyone has a good quality of life and access to opportunities, choices and high quality services which are sustainable, accessible and meet people’s needs.”

For a summary of the recent national and local elections click here (pdf 113 KB)

For further information contact the Leisure Policy Officer

Main Documents of Relevance
The main national strategies/legislative documents that are relevant to leisure services are:
• East Ayrshire’s Community Plan (2007)
• The draft Culture (Scotland) Bill (2007)
• Reaching Higher: Building on the Success of Sport 21 (2007)
• Let’s make Scotland more active: A strategy for physical activity (2003)
• Improving Health in Scotland – The Challenge (2003)
• People and Place: Regeneration Policy Statement (2006)
• The Local Government (Scotland) Act (2003) and (1994)
• Land Reform Act (2003)
• Planning Advice Note 65
• Useful websites

East Ayrshire Community Plan
http://www.eastayrshirecommunityplan.org/

The community plan’s overarching vision is that:

"East Ayrshire will be a place with strong, vibrant communities where everyone has a good quality of life and access to opportunities, choices and high quality services which are sustainable, accessible and meet people’s needs."

East Ayrshire’s Community Plan is divided into 6 themes which partners (for example Strathclyde Police and NHS Ayrshire and Arran, among others) agree on to shape the development of the area. The themes are:
• Promoting community learning
• Improving opportunities
• Improving community safety
• Improving health
• Eliminating poverty
• Improving the environment

East Ayrshire Council Leisure Services support the community plan in achieving the aspirations for the area.

Draft Culture (Scotland) Bill
http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2006/12/14095224/0

The Culture (Scotland) Bill, currently in draft form, provides a legal duty for Scottish Local Authorities to plan cultural activities in consultation with the public to develop cultural rights and entitlements. Cultural planning ‘should ideally inform community planning’ and in East Ayrshire this happens by having a leisure representative on each of the community planning thematic groups.

Cultural entitlements are, according to the Bill:

“Specific types of cultural activity or services that authorities will seek to make available to each person in their area who wishes to access them.”

Cultural entitlements will be stated and delivered by the council, showing where they have helped in achieving other goals (for example in improving health or education).

Reaching Higher
http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2007/03/07105145/0

This is the new sports strategy for Scotland published in March 2007. The new strategy sets out the long term objectives for sport until 2020 and shows clearly the roles of different organisations of delivering sport in Scotland.

Reaching higher acknowledges the usefulness of sport in achieving other objectives such as:
• Physical and mental wellbeing
• Building strong communities
• Closing opportunity gaps
• Promoting sustainable forms of transport (walking/cycling)
• Promoting volunteering
• Increasing tourism and helping rural areas

Among other things, this is a move away from Sport 21’s focus purely on sport for sport’s sake. The two key outcomes for Reaching Higher are:
• Increasing Participation; and,
• Improving Performance

The ways identified to achieve this is through focusing on: Quality Facilities, Strong Organisations; Well-Trained People; and, Providing the Pathways.

Let’s Make Scotland More Active: A Physical Activity Strategy
http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Health/health/Introduction/Introduction

The vision for the strategy is that: “People in Scotland will enjoy the benefits of having a physically active life.” Physical activity in the strategy is given a broad description to include:
• Active living
• Recreational activity
• Sport
• Exercise
• Play
• Dance

This inclusive definition means that there is no one agency that can deliver all areas of physical activity. Leisure Services play a large part though, working in partnership with others.
Improving Health in Scotland – The Challenge
http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2003/03/16747/19929

This provides a framework to support an active programme to deliver the policy for health improvement set out in Partnership for Care, Scotland’s Health White paper.

There are three main objectives.
1. To set out the work programme of:
• The Scottish Executive's actions to improve health
• The strengthened Special Health Board formed by the integration of the Public Health Institute of Scotland (PHIS) with the Health Education Board for Scotland (HEBS)
• Health improvement activities within NHS Boards.
2. To relate work programmes and processes across Scotland that are central to health improvement including:
• Health improvement as a cross-cutting policy for the whole Programme for Government
• Community Planning Partnerships
• The health improvement work of COSLA and local authorities
• The impact on health that arises from the work of the business sector, voluntary sector and other strands of Scottish life.
3. To encourage the many organisations and individuals within Scotland who contribute to health improvement and to allow them the opportunity to influence future work and phases of this long-term plan for change.

People and Place: Regeneration Policy Statement (2006)
http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Resource/Doc/127488/0030542.pdf

This is the Scottish Executive’s regeneration policy. This describes what has to be done to regenerate places and communities. It highlights the Executives work since devolution in regeneration and looks at the experience of regeneration in Scotland and the rest of the UK, identifying some critical success factors. It also sets out the new approach we intend to take, to:
• Improve the alignment of key private and public sector players;
• Maximise the impact of public and private sector investment in specific places;
• Focus our efforts on a small number of strategic geographic priorities;
• Support tightly targeted action to regenerate our most deprived neighbourhoods;
• Tackle land issues which can inhibit regeneration; and
• Create mixed and vibrant communities
The statement sums regeneration as being about:

“creating vibrant, safe and attractive communities where individuals and families from all backgrounds want to live and businesses want to invest and grow: communities which are well planned and well designed; communities with a diverse and attractive environment; communities which provide opportunities for culture and sport; and communities with a sense of identity and pride.” (p43).

Local Government Scotland Act (2003)
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/legislation/scotland/acts2003/20030001.htm

The Local Government in Scotland Bill (2003) has a number of key points. It places:
• A statutory duty on local authorities to secure best value in the delivery of their services (a move away from compulsory competitive tendering which looked at purely financial indicators)
• A duty to ensure Community Planning to secure the co-operation of local authorities and other key bodies and organizations and the community

An important development here was allowing Local Authorities to act in any way in which they might benefit the public as long as it is not expressly forbidden. Before councils could only act in ways instructed – now there is greater opportunities for innovative means of delivering services specifically tailored to the needs of local residents.

The Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2003.
http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Environment/Countryside/16328/4826

This establishes legal rights of access to land and inland water for outdoor recreation. The Statutory right of responsible access commenced on 9 February 2005.

Planning Advice Note 65
http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2003/01/16188/16553

PAN 65 gives advice on the role of the planning system in protecting and enhancing existing open spaces and providing high quality new spaces.

Some useful websites are:

Scottish Executive: The devolved Government for Scotland.
www.scotland.gov.uk

Scottish Libraries and Information Council: the independent advisory body to the Scottish Executive and Scottish Ministers on library and Information matters. http://www.slainte.org.uk/slic/index.htm

Scottish Arts Council: (the draft culture bill makes provisions to merge this with Scottish Screen to form a new body called Creative Scotland) http://www.scottisharts.org.uk/

Sport Scotland: the national agency for sport in Scotland.
http://www.sportscotland.org.uk/

Play Scotland: the lead organisation promoting the importance of play in the development of all our children and young people.
http://www.playscotland.org/

NHS Scotland: online health information provided by the NHS.
http://www.show.scot.nhs.uk/

NHS Ayrshire and Arran: the regional branch of the NHS for the area.
http://www.nhsayrshireandarran.com/view_item.aspx?item_id=3

VOCAL, acts as the voice of Chief Officers for Culture, Leisure and Community Services delivered in Scotland by local government and a range of key partners.
http://www.vocalscotland.org.uk/

Quest: the UK quality accreditation scheme for Sport and Leisure.
http://www.quest-uk.org/