A new set of case studies, co-published by the Sustainable Development Commission (SDC) and the Improvement and Development Agency (IDeA), demonstrate how some local authorities and their partners are tackling the challenge of putting sustainable development at the heart of local decision-making processes.

They show how taking a sustainable development approach can strengthen local policy-making, highlighting ways in which other local authorities and partnerships might follow suit.

The UK Government's new statutory guidance, Creating Strong, Safe and Prosperous Communities, emphasises that, to a greater extent that previously, sustainability should be central to the content of two key local plans. The Sustainable Community Strategy - the 'overarching plan' for a local area - should have sustainability at its heart: the "Strategy's economic, social and environmental priorities should therefore demonstrate how they support each other in an integrated way." In turn, the Local Area Agreement should be the "shorter-term delivery mechanism for the Sustainable Community Strategy."

The SDC/IDeA case studies not only set out what has been achieved, but also how these achievements were made and how barriers were overcome. This is to help other local authorities and Local Strategic Partnerships understand how they might replicate this good practice.

The case studies were developed by CAG Consultants for the SDC and have been updated by the IDeA. They are the first output from the SDC's Capability for Local Sustainability project, which has brought together key Government departments and national stakeholders to explore ways to improve the capability of local government and its partners to deliver sustainable development. The SDC will publish the findings from this project later this year. These case studies are also published on the IDeA's Partnerships and Place Library.

Who?	What?	How?
Cornwall	Integrating sustainability into strategy development	Sustainable Community Strategy and LAA
Birmingham	Taking a lead on climate change and sustainable procurement	Sustainable Community Strategy and LAA
Cumbria	Building sustainability appraisal into local priority-setting	Partnership working and sustainability appraisal
Sutton Partnership	Creating a genuinely sustainable local vision	Sustainable Community Strategy
Gloucestershire	Making sustainable development a cross-cutting theme	Partnership working
Hounslow	Evaluating sustainability	Sustainability Standard Toolkit
Islington	Putting climate change at the heart of the LSP	Climate Change Partnership
Oldham	Overcoming historic obstacles to develop leadership on sustainability	Oldham Partnership
Leicester	Using climate change to establishing high-level commitment to sustainable development	Leicester Partnership
Dudley	Sustainability as a cross cutting theme for the next generation	LAA (NGLAA)
North Somerset Partnership	Towards integrating sustainable development	Sustainable Community Strategy and LAA

Text and documents copyright of the Sustainable Development Commission. Full text available at: http://www.sd-commission.org.uk/pages/sustainable-development-and-local-decision-making-case-studies.html

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