The Accounts Commission and the Auditor General for Scotland have published a report on Principles for community empowerment, detailing how Scotland’s public bodies worked with communities and empowered community organisations to respond to the Covid-19 pandemic.
The report features case studies and examples of best practice from across Scotland which illustrate the value and importance of the community response to the crisis, especially in support of the most vulnerable in our society.
The community response to Covid-19 demonstrated how community organisations, including community councils, can be more effective when bureaucratic hurdles are removed, and the report calls on public bodies to ensure that there is no return to pre-pandemic ways of working.
Instead, the report authors state that communities should be supported to take more control over local decisions and assets, using routes through community councils and local authorities to enable local people to participate in decisions about local issues.
If you want to read the report in full, you can find it on the Audit Scotland website: https://www.audit-scotland.gov.uk/report/principles-for-community-empowerment