Social Plan: An introduction

Preparation of Social/Community Plans is now a new requirement of the NSW Government after introducing the Local Government (General) Amendment (Community and Social Plans) Regulation 1998.

The Director of Community Services, Mr Mario M Vallejos was delegated the responsibility for the preparation of the new Social Plan for the next five years.

Social Planning is, at its simplest, the process of systematically moving from human needs to strategies for meeting those needs.

The guidelines prepared by the Department of Local Government have two main objectives which the regulation is designed to achieve.

Firstly, all local Councils are being encouraged to take into account the needs of their communities when formulating their Management Plan and hence the preparation of a Social Plan.

Secondly, the community will have an increased ability to review Council's policies and assist Council to remain accountable to its community in relation to the Council's activities and decisions.

This new Social/Community Plan for the Kiama Municipality was prepared in-house rather than using the services of consultants.

The guidelines provided by the Department of Local Government included the following mandatory target groups, which Council must include in the Social Plan:

• children
• young people
• women
• older people
• people with disabilities
• Aboriginal people
• people from different cultural and linguistic backgrounds.

The Council corporate goals, and the development of this plan, reflect the principles of access and equity that are defined as those activities or strategies which benefit both the broad community and/or particular target groups, and help Council to:

• promote fairness in the distribution of resources, particularly for those most in need
• recognise and promote people's rights and improve the accountability of decision makers
• ensure that people have fairer access to the economic resources and services essential to meeting their basic needs and improving their quality of life
• give people better opportunities for genuine participation and consultation about decisions affecting their lives.

Both Council and the community must understand that, although documenting current community needs is an important first step in developing strategies to meet those needs, it is not realistic to expect that Council, in conjunction with other local community resources, will be able to meet all identified needs in the short term. Priority recommendations will have to be identified and implemented in a staged fashion, depending on the level of resources available.

Many issues may fall outside Council's direct responsibility. However, it is important for Council to formulate strategies which encourage other agencies to develop new services, or for other spheres of government to change policies or provide the required resources.

In the preparation of this Social/Community Plan, it has incorporated the information and research contained in the Kiama Municipal Health Plan (May 1998), the Community Profile (August 1998)(PDF File), Community Satisfaction and Services Priority Survey (February 1999), the Arts Industry and Cultural Tourism Feasibility Study ( March 1999) and other material gathered during the research for the plan.

The Community /Social Plan contains the information on activities planned to be addressed for the next five years. This will be reviewed annually as part of the preparation of Council's Management Plan.

This plan is an evolving process and does not stop with the completion of this document; as needs, priorities and issues change from time to time in the community, residents and representatives of the target groups are encouraged to contact Council as these arise for consideration in its annual review and can be updated as part of the planning process itself.