Oldham Metropolitan Borough Council has five District Community Councils. The Community Councils empower elected members together to agree local priorities, coordinate neighbourhood services and direct place-based funding.
Background
In 2024, the council launched the Oldham Plan, which is ‘grounded in partnership, bringing together the public sector, local businesses, community groups, and residents.’ Oldham has also been a Co-operative Council since 2011, which is embodied by residents, partners and staff working together to improve the borough.
Oldham is split between five districts (North, West, East, Central and South). Each district represents between three to five electoral wards, and 30,000 to 50,000 residents. The council made the conscious decision to align around shared neighbourhood geographies with partners in Greater Manchester Police and the NHS.
The council aims to engage with residents within the districts, utilising community assets such as Failsworth and Chadderton town halls to provide integrated support including Citizens’ Advice, financial guidance, and health and wellbeing advice. At the same time, Oldham has aligned with the Greater Manchester Live Well campaign, which is a region-wide approach to improve health and wellbeing within the neighbourhoods that residents recognise and call home.
Structure
To align with the districts, the council has established five District Community Councils. All elected members within the district are invited to take part, which means each Community Council consists of between nine and 15 councillors. One elected member is appointed as the Lead Member for the district and acts as the Chair of the Community Council.
The Community Council meeting is also attended by key stakeholders within the Council, such as Community Safety, Adult Social Care and Children’s Services, and wider partners across the Borough, including Oldham’s Neighbourhood Policing Team.
Funding and resources
Whilst the District Community Councils are not a formal part of the council’s governance structure, each lead member is provided a Special Responsibility Allowance for their role.
Each elected member is provided with an annual budget for work within their ward, which may align with the District Plan. The council has also aligned the recent Community Regeneration Partnership Funding with the District Community Councils.
Each community district council is supported in the first instance by the council’s Neighbourhoods team, who are organised around the five districts.
How they work
The District Community Councils meet on three occasions throughout the municipal year. Each community council is tasked with the production of a District Plan, which contains elected members key priorities for the district. There is a column for each priority in the District Plan to indicate how it relates to each ward within the district. In order to supplement this process, officers pull together a District Profile – which contains insight including demographics, resident feedback and hospital admission data.
Throughout the year, the Community Panel is expected to agree, monitor and review the District Plan.
Outside of the formal meetings of the Community Panel, the council organises resident-focused workshop meetings which bring together wider partners. These sessions are used to problem-solve, identify solutions and celebrate success on key themes within the community, aligned with the District Plan.
For example, partners from the Council’s Community Safety Team, District Team, Greater Manchester Police colleagues, alongside elected members worked collaboratively to address a local issue around inconsiderate, unsafe, and illegal parking in a residential area. The issue was causing multiple problems for local residents. The problem was addressed via direct resident engagement, issuing of awareness raising literature, introduction of warning notices followed by a day of action where fines were issued to those who continued to park Illegally. The outcomes of this approach were increased confidence with residents that services at a district level can respond to issues that matter to them.
Lessons learnt
- It is vital to have a clarity of structures and decision-making in order to obtain buy-in from wider public sector partners. The District Plan has been particularly helpful in this sense, making it clear who owns each action.
- In order to obtain support from local residents, it is important to create a welcome and productive environment which indicates that the council views residents as part of the solution to challenges. Oldham have been able to foster this through the partnership approach of the Oldham Plan and their status as a Co-operative Council.