Resourcing the plan
This section outlines considerations to support partners make appropriate decision on both financial resources (e.g. funding) and human resources (e.g. people and their skills and knowledge) in order to improve performance.
To address the priorities in the partnership plan, it is important to understand what resources are available. Understanding the availability of resources helps to ensure that the partnership plan is realistic and achievable. Likewise, it encourages the partnership to look for ways to improve value for money by delivering solutions in the most cost - effective ways. To ensure that that the resources are used as effectively as possible partners may wish to consider adopting one of the two following approaches:
- Including the financial information within each section of the partnership plan, i.e. stating how resources are to be used to support the objectives outlined in the business case and also ensuring that any risks attached to the use of resources will be managed and by whom.
- Develop and produce a separate financial information section within the plan that relates purely to resource, both financial and personnel, management.
Each partnership will have their own preferences and the minimum standards do not specify how partnerships should go about documenting, monitoring and evaluating the impact of resource usage. To ensure that partnerships achieve maximum benefit from their resources, they may wish to consider the following questions:
- How will the partnership ensure that there are appropriate financial resources to deliver on the objectives outlined in the partnership plan?
- What mechanisms or measures will the partnership put in place to ensure that the financial resources are being used effectively?
- How will the partnership ensure that the partners tasked with ensuring either strategic or operational delivery are appropriately skilled to meet the objectives outlined in the partnership plan?
The next two sections consider these questions in more detail by setting out the areas that partners could consider when ensuring that the resources are used as effectively as possible.
