Community Assemblies and OFFER's role

Community Assemblies were launched in May 2009, and replace the previous Area Panels structure.  The idea behind Community Assemblies is better community engagement & influence and greater accountability, with local people at the centre of decision making processes for their area, and Councillors more directly accountable to those who elected them.

The 7 Community Assembly areas are aligned with electoral ward boundaries, with 4 wards combined into each area giving an approximate population of 70,000 citizens per area. This gives economies of scale for service delivery while still enabling communities to have their say.

What was OFFER's role around Community Assemblies? 

In 2009/10 OFFER were commissioned by SCC City Council to help support local people to effectively engage with the opportunities created by Community Assemblies.  The main way OFFER did this was via the 'How Your Area Works' programme, which was really successful and well received.  Feedback from the 83 participants who attended has been really positive with many of them going on to both engage with their Community Assemblies and do all sorts of other activities for the benefit of their Community as a direct result of coming along.  

Click here to read more about 'How Your Area Works' and how it can be commissioned to be delivered in Sheffield Communities in the future.     

In addition OFFER played a key role in supported the VCF sector to engage with Councillors and Senior Council Officers both during the development process of the Community Assemblies and more latterly as part of the CA review process almost a year into their implementation. 

Click here to visit Sheffield City Council's Community Assemblies webpage.