Public sector organisations seek a conversation with Moray residents.

Starting today there’s an opportunity to get involved directly with the people and organisations that provide your public services.

That includes the police, fire and rescue, council, NHS, HIE, the voluntary sector and others. They’re all part of the Moray Community Planning Partnership and they’re working together to shape the future of Moray’s services for the next ten years.To do this in a way that meets your needs they need you to get involved.

Over the next couple of months you’ll see posters, banners and booklets appearing in dozens of locations throughout Moray. These will tell you about our conversation with you. We’re also opening up for conversations on Facebook, with weekly live chat sessions between you and experts in certain fields. Every week we’ll be talking about a different public service issues you may have a view on, including anti-social behaviour, affordable housing, care and carers, early years and apprenticeships to name but a few.

We want to know what you think Moray should look like in ten years’ time. We’ve come up with five priorities we think would be important, but are they yours? If not, why not? Only by joining the conversation can you help create the Moray you want.

Our current 10 year plan is what we’ve been working to deliver since 2013, but this needs to be refreshed to reflect our communities and any changes. Only you can provide those first-hand experiences and opinions.

We’re kicking off on today with a week on business start-ups, an area where Moray performs well and has created employment. The Business Gateway service is well-used but is it really necessary? If a business is good enough it can surely manage without publicly-funded support. If our support for business start-ups is needed, is it doing what you think it should, does it matter, and is there anything we could do better?

Craig Robertson from Moray Business Gateway will be online on Wednesday evening between 7pm and 8pm for a live Facebook chat, and throughout the week to respond to any queries.

There’s also a survey we’d like you to complete for us; it’s online on our Facebook page, just search for Moray Community Planning. It's also here. Follow us on Twitter too, just type in @CPPMoray and we’ll see you there.

The Community Planning Partnership is a group of public and voluntary organisations that work together to plan and deliver better services, with the ambition of making a real difference to people’s lives in Moray. The following organisations are members:

Highlands and Islands Enterprise

HITRANS

Moray College UHI

Moray Council

Moray Integration Joint Board

NHS Grampian

Police Scotland

Scottish Fire and Rescue Service

Scottish Government

Skills Development Scotland

tsiMORAY

These organisations and groups are involved in providing services including economic development, roads, health care, education, mental health, policing, sports and leisure, transport, and libraries to name just a few.