Strategic Community Needs Assessment (SCNA)

Client: Bury Metropolitan Borough Council
Duration: 12 months (January 2007– December 2007)

Project Overview
Faced with a challenging agenda and an ever stretched funding budget, Bury MBC was keen to become an “early implementer” in order to realise the significant benefits of conducting a strategic community needs assessment. Bury worked together with CPC to develop the delivery methodology and has now embarked upon a borough-wide SCNA project set to deliver a host of positive outcomes beyond the statutory requirement outlined in the white papers, such as ‘Our Health, Our Care, Our Say: a new direction for community services’.

Bury’s SCNA project has been designed to support intelligence-led commissioning and whole systems redesign of the support and care services available to the people of Bury. It engages with all the major agencies from within the borough that provide these types of services and seeks to reinvest significant efficiency savings and provide a more co-ordinated approach to support and care across the borough.

CPC’s Role
CPC's role is to project-manage the process from A to Z, and liaise with all areas of the council to ensure the project is delivered on time to the required standard of quality. CPC’s strategic partner, Dr. Foster, ensures a concise and unbiased view of the available information. Unbiased analytical clarity is essential to provide clear guidance where resources should be allocated.

Client Benefits
Apart from statutory requirements, the Strategic Community Needs Assessment ("SCNA") entails a number of significant benefits such as:

• Evidence-based decision making
• “Whole system” service planning
• Integrated and intelligent commissioning
• Move to preventive service offerings
• Better utilisation of resources and efficiency savings
• Objective reviews of current levels and methods of service provision
• The local community gets to “have a say”

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