Planning the development of the Accessibility Strategy

Perhaps the most important immediate task will be to plan the development of the full Accessibility Strategy over the remaining months to March 2006. To that end, it might be helpful to draft a development plan.

This should cover both the events that occur at a fixed point in time (e.g. committee meetings), and any processes that run over a period (e.g. drafting the strategy or the consultation period with partners). You might find the questions in the box below will help you in your planning.

Key questions to consider:

• When will the partnership be able to meet?
• When should I speak with colleagues within my local authority?
• When will the Council/ Committee approve the strategy?
• What planning timescales do my partners use?
• When will proposals need to be agreed by partners?
• When does the draft strategy need to be prepared?
• When do I need to consult on the draft strategy?
• Who needs to review the draft strategy?
• How much time do partners need to approve decisions?
• What opportunities are there for taking on board changes?

Your plan could include timings for key events that will influence the development of the strategy. This should, wherever possible, demonstrate any interdependencies between these events and with the planned processes. Remember: The aim is to identify the critical tasks that need to be undertaken to prepare the strategy.

The main events that should be identified include:

• Partnership meetings
• One-to-one meetings with partners
• Meetings with other local authority departments
• Committee approval dates
• Partner approval dates
• When the draft strategy will be available for review by partners
• Printing deadlines

It’s important for you to have a full grasp of the preparation time you’ll need in the build-up to the submission of your strategy. Underestimating how long some of the processes can take will undermine the efficiency and timeliness of its development. Bear in mind that working with partners, especially in a new and challenging area such as accessibility planning, may take longer than you have initially planned. As such it’s a good idea to build some leeway into the expectations of how long these tasks will take.

Processes that should be identified in your programme include the following:

• Consultation and information gathering
• Data consolidation and cleansing
• Mapping and analysis
• Drafting the strategy
• Consideration of different options, including costing
• Evaluating options
• Setting targets and indicators
• Revising the strategy
• Developing action plans
• Securing finance and other resources

Some of these processes might occur after the submission of you strategy in March 2006. A diagram of the proposed process will help you to check whether the timescales are realistic and achievable. This might take the form of a spreadsheet, Gantt chart or other project schedule, whichever you find more useful.

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