Tuesday March 10th 2026
East Lothian Council headquarters
Written by Midlothian View Reporter, Liam Eunson
A new ten-year plan to improve East Lothian communities’ health and wellbeing, safety and financial security has been agreed.
The East Lothian Community Planning Partnership’s Board met on 9 March to approve the 2026- 2036 Local Outcome Improvement Plan as well as a new name and streamlined governance structure to strengthen local voices in community planning.
The East Lothian Community Planning Partnership, formerly known as the East Lothian Partnership, is a statutory body that brings together public organisations including East Lothian Council, NHS Lothian, Police Scotland, voluntary sector and communities to identify priorities and plan services. It carried out extensive engagement to create the new plan, distilling responses into three themes: living well, keeping safe and money matters. These were then subject to further engagement with communities and partners before being agreed by the Board.
Living Well highlights wellbeing, staying connected with others and communities, and healthy and active places and spaces. Money Matters is in line with the Partnership’s poverty plan prioritising the creation of good jobs that pay fairly, enough money from benefits, a good life with access to essentials and climate change ready. Keeping Safe covers a range of matters that impact people and communities from online safety and community-based issues to gender-based abuse and climate adaptation.
Strategic groups for each of the three themes will bring together relevant agencies to plan and take forward actions.
East Lothian Council’s Cabinet member for Community Wellbeing, Councillor Colin McGinn, said:
“The strength in our Partnership approach is that these are big issues that a single body cannot resolve. By working together and recognising our individual strengths and specialities, we can have a bigger impact.
“Poverty, for example, has many impacts. We know it impacts educational attainment which is why our council is working closely to close the gap between students in our most and least deprived areas. It also affects health outcomes and life expectancy, housing options and a wide range of other matters that many of us take for granted. In short, it cannot be solved by one agency in isolation.
“The Plan gives us all a focus for our collective activities and each organisation can align their own work to it. We know this approach works from our review of our key achievements in 2024/25 such as the joined-up support for people with dementia and their carers in Musselburgh, or the early multi-agency work to tackle antisocial behaviour, fires and police incidents.”
Area Partnership Chairs, and representatives from East Lothian Tenants and Residents Panel and the Association of East Lothian Community Councils, are now included in Board meetings with community perspectives key to the Partnership’s work.
Councillor McGinn added: “I am particularly pleased that the Board is strengthening its structures to include a wider range of voices from community groups and voluntary sector. As equal partners they will help to drive forward improvements that will make a real difference for communities.”
The Partnership agreed a name change to address feedback gathered during its consultation that people did not understand its work, role within community planning or standing as a statutory body recognised in law. Ongoing communication will be taken forward to raise awareness of the Partnership and to evidence its impact through better data gathering and reporting through the Plan’s lifetime.
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