We want to improve the lives of our residents, from the youngest to the oldest. We want to create communities where everyone can thrive, where essential services are accessible, where people can enjoy life at any age and where people look out for each other.
Strong communities foster social support, enhance well-being, and create a sense of belonging, which collectively contribute to a more resilient and cohesive society.
We want public sector resources to be used as effectively as possible to meet local needs, so we believe we need to redesign how the council works with communities.
This Council Plan priority is the least developed, and further work is needed to shape it through co-design with partners and communities themselves. This section sets out our direction of travel. The Council Plan will be updated once the co-design work has been completed.
The challenge
Dorset has many strong communities, with an active voluntary and community sector and over 160 town and parish councils. However, the population and world are changing rapidly, and our communities need support to adapt to the challenges ahead.
Dorset has the oldest demographic of any county in the UK. 29.5% of our population are aged over 60, compared to an average of 19% nationally. As people age, they often need more health and care support putting more pressure on already-stretched services. Meanwhile, younger people often move away due to lack of opportunities, low wages and high housing costs, reducing our working age population.
There are also widespread disparities across the Dorset Council area. Our 2023 residents’ survey shows significant differences in how residents from different areas view the quality of council services. Some communities are calling for Dorset Council to work differently to better understand and meet the needs of towns and villages. Some of our town and parish councils are also calling for better partnership working.
Dorset is reportedly one of the least socially mobile areas in the country. Social mobility is the link between a person's occupation or income with that of their parents. Many of our communities face deep poverty having experienced hardships for decades, repeatedly appearing in the bottom national measurement for deprivation. There are also areas of poverty in wealthier rural areas, with data averages masking large income inequalities.
Health inequalities are the unfair and avoidable differences in people’s health across social groups and between different populations. In Dorset people are generally healthier and live for longer than England overall; 1.8 years longer for both men and women. However, the length of time people in Dorset live is closely related to the extent of disadvantage and deprivation they experience. Males living in the least deprived areas live on average 5.5 years longer and females 4.9 years longer, than those living in the most deprived areas.
Healthy life expectancy, where people can expect to live a healthy life for as long as possible is also affected by deprivation and disadvantage. The amount of time spent living in good health before long-term health conditions appear varies greatly across Dorset. People experiencing long-term health conditions affects economic growth and productivity in working-age adults.
Finally, our residents’ survey highlighted issues of community cohesion – also evidenced through local protests in August 2024. While three quarters of Dorset’s residents feel that they belong in their community, less than half (49%) of ethnic minority residents feel the same. In Weymouth and Portland, only 44% of residents feel that people from different backgrounds get on in their local area.
Our approach
The ‘communities for all’ priority is where our themes of ‘prevention’ and ‘partnership’ come most strongly into play.
We believe strong communities have a vital role in preventing crises from happening, both personal and community crises. They are essential responders during crises of all kinds. When communities are well-connected and supportive, they can better mobilise resources, provide mutual support, and recover more quickly. This helps ensure our most vulnerable residents receive help from people they know and trust. When residents are connected and look out for one another, communities thrive.
We need to reduce the various inequalities between different groups, giving more equal access to opportunities, and supporting more cohesive communities.
This requires a different way of working with partners and in localities across our area. It requires a comprehensive and joined-up response across public sector, the voluntary and community sector (VCS), with local businesses, and other partners to address social, economic, and infrastructural challenges. We want to build on, accelerate and enhance our approach to place-based working, which is about ‘working with’ and ‘not ‘doing to’ people and our communities.
Improvements to health, social mobility, inclusion, and reduced poverty not only benefits individuals and families but also improves the wellbeing, resilience and prosperity of a whole community. In turn, it can also achieve a more sustainable model for statutory health and care services.
Target measures
To be developed at a later stage
Key actions to deliver this priority
To be developed but likely to include:
- Prevention and early help: listen to and involve residents in decisions about their health and wellbeing, and care and support needs. Use data to better understand current needs and identify potential issues before they become problems.
- A more joined-up and coherent model of place-based working, building on existing arrangements, developing strong relationships locally, and using existing assets in communities, such as libraries and family hubs. This will be built into the council’s new target operating model (this sets out how the council will introduce new ways of working with residents and communities). This action will involve continued working with Integrated Care System partners to establish health and care teams in each neighbourhood.
- Review how we support the voluntary and community sector in Dorset so that VCS organisations can best support communities and meet people’s needs. This may involve simplifying access to funding and working with the new Voluntary and Community Sector Assembly.
- Review how we could work more closely with town and parish councils.
- All work to be co-designed and delivered with community partners.
Leadership and partnership
- We have been a trailblazer working on the government’s Families First for Children Pathfinder. We will continue to work very closely with our partners in health, the police, education and the voluntary sector to put families at the centre of changes to the delivery of support they receive from us and our partners.
- Recognising our unique demographic, we aim to lead the UK in how we support people of all ages, within an ageing population.
- We will seek internationally recognised accreditation as an age-friendly county
- The council will play a clear role in building new health and care teams in every neighbourhood, working with the NHS, residents and communities.
Standing up for Dorset
- We will lobby for fairer funding for Dorset schools and for children with special educational needs
- We will lobby government on issues of healthy ageing and disability
- We will work with NHS partners to maximise income to support the health needs of our population and develop new and innovative models of preventative work
- We will promote Dorset as a great place to live and work, recruiting a younger workforce through developing training opportunities within the county.