Other FAQs

If you live, work, study or have a business in Belfast, then the Belfast Agenda affects you! We want to hear your views as we seek to improve the Belfast Agenda, as part of our duty to review our community plan. We want to know what you think about our existing vision and outcomes for Belfast (for 2035); and the citywide priorities that will provide the focus for delivery over the next four years (2022-26). This forms the basis of our initial engagement which we expect to run from June-September 2021. At this stage, we expect to have an agreed priority framework and attention will turn to action planning and problem solving.  We will undertake further engagement to help shape our plans which will contain a range of actions, design to deliver meaningful impact to the population indicators which measure progress against our outcomes. We expect this phase of engagement will be undertaken for the rest of 2021 and into the new year.

Sections 69 and 70 of the Local Government Act 2014 set out the statutory requirements for the review of community plans which must be completed before the fourth anniversary of the date on which the Plan was published. This means that the first review of the Belfast Agenda is required by November 2021.  

In addition to the legislative requirement to review the community plan, there is a need to revise the areas the city will focus on in the short term to drive recovery following the COVID-19 pandemic. As the true effects emerge, we need to ensure our city economy and communities are able to rebuild in the coming months and years. The Belfast Agenda was influenced by a set of shared values that have shaped its design. As part of its first formal review, we wish to reflect on lessons learned to date. We are therefore driven by values of innovation and a focus on outcomes for people and we will identify what we need to do differently to make the next 4 years a success. 

Finally, there is a growing literature providing recommendations to improve community planning including Dr Johann Gallagher’s SIB report, “Towards a Programme of Support for Community Planning in Northern Ireland” and Carnegie UK Trust’s recommendation (endorsed by committee in March 2021) following the “Embedding a Wellbeing Framework in Northern Ireland” project. The Review of the Belfast Agenda therefore presents an excellent opportunity to embed many of these recommendation into our community planning processes and practices to deliver the required change we want for Belfast.  

It is envisaged that lockdown measures will continue to be in place in the near future and therefore, the majority of engagement activities will at least initially take place virtually or online. The ‘Your Say Belfast’ engagement platform will provide a grouped space where all engagement activities will be located and critically where feedback on each stage will also be provided. However, if the situation improves, we will allow for face-to-face engagement later in the process. Offline engagement via postcard surveys will be distributed through our network of leisure centres, community centres and libraries. 

An initial engagement plan has been developed which includes 4 flagship, area-based workshops which will be planned and delivered with local stakeholders (end July/ start August). A further engagement event is being planned targeting communities of interest and ‘seldom-heard’ groups including young people, disability, gender, ethnic minorities/ newcomers, LGBT. Further communications activity is planned including email newsletters, an article in City Matters and a social media campaign. This activity will aim to refer users to the Your Say Belfast platform where we will be able to capture views for further analysis.

Finally, there will be scheduled online drop-in sessions in the run up to the engagement events. These informational MS Teams calls will provide stakeholders and members of the public with an opportunity to find out more information about our engagement programme, community planning and crucially how they can engage.