3.0 How to produce a community action plan

Resourcing the process

The consultation and planning work could be designed by the community and/or delivered by them, or by independent professionals on behalf of the community. The latter can bring expertise in, for example, planning consultation activities, facilitating events or workshops, administering surveys, and drafting the plan.

There are pros and cons to each approach, as shown in the drop-down below,  so consider carefully which is most appropriate. One option is to try and get the best of both worlds by hiring an external consultant to support the delivery of the work – but also using local volunteers so as to enable the widest possible engagement of local people through their efforts and networks. A good consultant should be able to work well with volunteers and support this approach.

Either approach will require some resourcing (money or in-kind), with possible sources being an existing community benefit fund, the owner of the renewable energy project, or the Scottish Government’s CARES programme, which provides an Enablement Grant for such work.

Occasionally, the renewable energy business is interested in supporting this stage of development activity as a further demonstration of their commitment to the area and to ensuring the community benefits package works well for the community. It is worth approaching them to see if they will contribute to these costs. In some contexts, the local authority or some third sector support organisations may provide staff to support the process in some way or may in fact, already be tasked to provide such a process to local communities.

To pay consultants to support the work, there will need to be a process to appoint them, known as procurement. This process could be carried out by a Steering Group of local representatives (see section 3.2 below), bringing wider local buy-in and accountability.

The procurement process usually involves the following steps:

• Agree a specification for the work;
• Issue this as part of an ‘invitation to tender’ to a short list of prospective consultants;
• Select a consultant from the tenders received. It may help to interview each of the prospective consultants to get a better sense of their experience and how they would deliver the work;
• Formally appoint (i.e. enter into a contract with) them. Normally the contract will need to be between the consultant and a local organisation that will receive and manage any funds for this purpose.

A number of consultants with skills and experience in this area can be found in the CARES Framework for Services in Community Engagement.

Guidance and templates to support the commissioning process are available through CARES, including a sample specification and invitation to tender, a sample scoring sheet for selecting tenders, and a template consultancy agreement. Pointers on managing the contract effectively are also provided.