The Scottish Government consultation on the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Bill closed on 24 January 2014.
The proposed Bill aims to make the most of the talents that exist in our communities; deliver high quality and improving public services; and support strong local democracy and local decision-making.
Our main interests in the Bill are:
- how it will enable Community Bodies to inform, influence and shape services more effectively
- how this can impact on the delivery of health and social care services, and
- how the Bill interacts with proposed and existing healthcare legislation.
We prepared the following briefing paper – VHS Community Empowerment Bill Briefing
The priorities detailed in the paper reflect discussions at a Sounding Board of Voluntary Health Scotland members on 17 January 2014. We used this briefing to inform Voluntary Health Scotland’s response to the consultation.
Following the consultation, Scottish Government will analyse and consider all responses along with any other available evidence to them reach decisions on what the Bill should say. They aim to issue a report on this consultation process by Spring 2014; this will be available on the Scottish Government consultation website.
