What are the Themes all about?

We have 3 themes within the New Ways Partnership, that bring together relevant agencies, organisations, community groups etc. involved in the achievement of the outcomes in the Borders Single Outcome Agreement . 

• Competitive Borders
• Healthy Borders
• Strong and Safe Borders

Each theme meets on a regular basis to ensure that joint work and the work of each agency is aligned to the outcomes in the SOA and that there is positive movement within the SOA Performance Indicators.

For example, one of the key outcomes of Competitive Borders is:
"The Tourism industry continues to develop as a key contributor to the local economy"

Some of the indicators that support this outcome are:

• Number of tourist trips to Scottish Borders by UK residents
• Number of tourist trips to Scottish Borders by overseas visitors
• Visitor Bed nights in the Scottish Borders

The work of Scottish Borders Council, VisitScotland Borders and other key partners should have a positive effect on these indicators i.e. more visitors, more often, spending more etc.... Competitive Borders is there to oversee this.

Fairer Borders is a cross cutting theme and is there to ensure that equalities and diversity are built into the plans and work of the public sector. This theme is also responsible for monitoring the Borders allocation of Fairer Scotland Funding (click here to link to the Scottish Government site, for more information)

Information on each theme will be available shortly (end Nov 08)