From community connection to community power

Last week Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) launched a blog series on tackling hardship in neighbourhoods. In case you missed it, you can find last week's blogs on social connection and the need to understand hardship beyond just material deprivation here.

This week, the next four blogs are connected by ideas of building resilience and community power to reshape systems and prevent hardship spiralling. Rachel Casey and I reflect on some of the common themes in the blogs here.

Building resilience

Many of our authors reflect on the theme of how to build more resilient social infrastructure in neighbourhoods - the places, spaces and organisations that enable people to come together and connect.

Julian Dobson alerts us to the policy failures of the past that have resulted in a lack of certainty and sustainability for community and voluntary organisations. It has locked them into seemingly unending rounds of competitive funding bids and a ‘stop and start’ brand of policy intervention. He calls for long-term patient investment in locally led regeneration. You can read more here.

Adam Hawksbee hones in on the importance of buildings and physical spaces. He argues that gaining ownership of them can be transformational, fostering long-term resilience and ensuring buildings are used in ways that meet the priorities and needs of a community. He argues for an acceleration in the transfer of buildings from councils to community control, and for targeted support for areas where capacity to take on assets is weaker. You can read more here.

Josh Westerling focuses on the role of community businesses - those that are locally-rooted, locally accountable, trading for the benefit of their area and reinvesting profits locally. These are the businesses that help build resilience and retain wealth in neighbourhoods. He argues for an expansion of the Community Ownership Fund and business rate reliefs for community businesses. You can read more here.

Building community power

Well connected communities and resilient social infrastructure are one thing, but for community power to flourish requires communities to be able to shape the places they live and the services they use. It is not just about what happens in communities, but their relationship with decision-makers that enables them to make and influence change.

Ed Wallis of Locality makes the case for a Community Power Act - a call that is echoed by many of our other authors. This would include new community rights to extend real control over local spaces, services and spending, decisively shifting the balance of power in the direction of communities.??He points out that solutions to the big challenges we face are already quietly growing from the ground up and asks us to imagine what we could achieve if government as a whole got behind them. You can read more here.

Shifting culture

Across our blog series there is overwhelming consensus that there needs to be a fundamental culture shift to enable greater collaboration between communities and the state. This is a missing piece in our current debate about devolution in England, which is primarily concerned with devolution from the centre to city-regions and counties.

We need to back the energy, determination and hope that exists in communities, and meet it with consistent, committed and patient support. How to shift the role of the state will be the central theme of our final group of ideas in this series.?

Coming up...

The final blog in this series will consider how to shift the role of the (local) state.

If you missed the first blog on building social connection and understanding hardship, you can read it here.