Reflections on a New Era for National and Community Renewal

I’ve spent the start of this week in Wales.

With around 10 days since the new UK government formed, it’s been a good vantage point to share some early reflections as Chief Executive of the The National Lottery Community Fund .

Strengthening Relations Across the UK

On taking office, the new Prime Minister immediately focused on strengthening relations across the four nations of the UK. As one of the few UK-wide public bodies working in fields that are mostly devolved policy areas, it’s impossible to overstate the importance of this. The hidden ties that bind the nations of the UK have felt frayed nearly to the final yarn for a good while. Improved cohesion and better respect, learning, and sharing across the UK will benefit all.

Take ideas here in Wales. The Wellbeing of Future Generations Act places a duty on public bodies to consider the long-term impact of their decisions, work better with people and communities, and tackle persistent challenges like climate change and opportunities for young people. As a community funder, this long-term thinking has enabled us to work and partner more broadly in recent years than we might otherwise. We see that evidence in practice, such as the depth and breadth of Welsh local authorities involved in projects and activities we fund. It promotes greater attention on prevention, collaboration, and, vitally, the direct involvement of people and communities. I hope this new government captures the opportunity to reflect the nuances and difference across the regions and nations of the UK, while ensuring the common ties enable us to test, learn and share the ideas and models to drive better outcomes for people and communities.

The Values of Public Service

A second early theme from the Prime Minister and his newly formed government had been the values of public service. As someone from a family involved in continuous public service for well over three hundred years (mostly in lighthouses – but that’s another story), this speaks to me powerfully and personally. At the National Lottery Community Fund, we are public servants rather than civil servants, working to enabling funding decisions independently of the government of the day, but as part of the broader family of public service. It was no surprise, then, that when we undertook our work on our new strategy, 'It Starts with Community' it was a priority for colleagues to write down the common values that matter to us – as One Fund – and to ensure we live by them.

We asserted these as: inclusive, ambitious, impact-focused, adaptable, and compassionate. These reflect our core beliefs and how we want to work with partners, communities, and colleagues. It’s inspiring to see a renewed focus on public service, the values that guide public servants, and that this matters. That may itself be an emotional spur for early action.

National and community renewal

Perhaps the most striking theme of this new government, and most relevant for our mission at the National Lottery Community Fund, has been the clarity of focus and urgency placed on national and community renewal. There have already been promising signals of intent with a shift in conversation and approach regarding power and resources. For example, the way the Prime Minster and his Cabinet very early convened regional leaders – and what this shows about an intent to think differently.

For national and community renewal to become a reality, true and deep partnership working with regions and local communities, will be vital. Follow how government money and power flow and it shows how uniquely concentrated decisions are here in the UK – more than four-fifths of spending is made at the national level, a greater share than any other OECD country. It hasn’t always been like this – indeed, the longer history of the UK shows a strong role for local decision-making in driving change. For the few decades after the Second World War, this same share was roughly one-third local, two-thirds national. We’ve reached peak centralisation only in the last few years.

But it’s far from just about funding. It’s also about how we think about issues and the problems or solutions that lie within and around them. Take climate change – for many, it’s become a remote and increasingly frightening debate about international energy markets, decaying infrastructure, inadequate levels of or poorly directed capital investment, and global weather systems, degradation of nature and wholescale species loss that feel beyond any personal control or influence.

Or in health and care, systems and models are deemed no longer affordable or fit for purpose, and worsening outcomes or equality of outcomes the fault of actions or inactions from pharmaceuticals to private insurance companies, to supermarkets or high street takeaways.

Shift onto how we come together as a society, and we hear we’re no longer listening to each other, consumed by ourselves, fixated on social media, and disconnected from the places and people we live in and alongside.

I’m not saying there’s nothing in such analyses. What I will say is that if those that narrate how we live in society tell a story threaded with how it’s always about power and systems elsewhere, decisions that rest intangibly above and beyond, a little beyond any one person’s reach, things we all can’t possibly understand or be trusted with, then we should not be surprised to see trust ebbs away, connections and ties fray, and people step back rather than forward to common endeavour and community action.

I believe there’s another view possible and that’s where I see huge opportunity in the new government’s focus on renewal.

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It Starts with Community

At the National Lottery Community Fund, that’s why we say ‘It starts with community.’ As Chief Executive, I think of us fundamentally as a local and relational funder working in and alongside communities, while benefitting from the national scale as an organisation to foster greater reach. The national part brings capacity and the capability to help bring our work and impact together.

We’ve given up being a ‘headquartered’ organisation, and instead hire funding teams who live and work in the communities we serve, and are responsible for a local ‘patch’. Where we have offices, we’re in towns and cities across the UK, from Birmingham to Newcastle, Cardiff to Glasgow, Belfast to Exeter, and this helps combines local and regional perspective.

The perspective from which you view the world, and where you see best decisions made, matters. Personally, I am hardly ever involved in grant award decisions, and it’s much better for it – so that they are made either by or as close as possible to communities we serve.

?Speaking to the Manchester Evening News, the Wigan MP and new Secretary for State Lisa Nandy said, “rebuilding communities starts with the people in them” and “those closest to communities are best placed to make decisions”.

We couldn’t agree more.

In February this year, thanks to National Lottery players we awarded almost ￡70,000 over two years to Wigan Athletic Community Trust . The history of the Community Trust is insightful. Established in 1988 it was a way for the football club to give back to the community and engage young people in positive activities and healthy lifestyles. In 2020, when the club was placed in administration the Community Trust stepped up work to engage with and support the community, advocating, fundraising, developing partnerships and providing some stability in what was a shocking moment.

I’ve been there as fan before with my own football club, Notts County. So much history and identity potentially slipping away.

Harnessing the power of football, ‘Game Plan’ sessions for 11–16-year-olds are helping to improve mental and emotional wellbeing, supporting children and young people to thrive in the most challenging circumstances. The project responds to local need – and is rooted in partnership being informed by research carried out by Wigan Athletic Community Trust, Wigan Council, Greater Manchester Police, and StreetGames.

And back to Wales and the climate and nature challenge. Here in Cardiff we’ve funded the Railway Gardens project, led by Green Squirrel, using a small slice of land to create a community allotment and hold workshops, social activities and training for more than 600 people each year. It’s good for health and wellbeing. And starts to put back the sense of agency, control and power into people’s hands.

?Further along the coast to Swansea, we’ve helped Down to Earth support young people to create practical community projects like making sustainable buildings, learning valuable skills. Or across the Barrage in Penarth where we supported the community development of the pier. These are some of the 1,487 projects, worth ￡131 million, we’ve been able to back for communities Cardiff alone thanks to National Lottery players.

The Opportunity

We’re far from alone from seeing opportunity here. Many people, over many decades and in many countries around the world, have helped drive and support the pursuit of shifting power and resources to community.

Now is not the time to get into all finer details. There’s a fertile ground to learn from – and different models will be appropriate in different in different places and circumstances. Indeed, that complexity should itself a big driver for greater community-led solution. From approaches to common-pool resourcing to cooperatives, from models of community organising to participatory budgeting, from alternative social finance to community development corporations there is a wealth of approaches and learning.

There’s so much promise. I also understand some cynicism. Have we heard some of this before? Why is now different? Isn’t it really about what happens in a room somewhere else? And aren’t voluntary sector and community organisations so strained now that the struggle to survive, not thrive, will dominate.

I also politely disagree.

Over the border in England, we’ve been developing ideas, listening, and talking to communities, and we have ambitious plans coming this year rooted in this new approach to ‘It starts with community’. These will, among things, focus on funding to increase power, agency, and control in communities, and to directly involve young people, communities, and Lottery players in deciding where funding goes.

Next week our UK-wide funding work will see new announcements to support opportunity for children and young people. As One Fund, operating across the UK, we’ll build on our long-standing approach of targeted funding where it’s needed most, ensuring we’re accountable for a commitment that more than 50% of all grant funding will go to communities experiencing the greatest poverty, disadvantage, and discrimination.

This approach will be at the heart of our four community-led funding missions to:

·?????? support communities to come together.

·?????? support communities to be environmentally sustainable.

·?????? support communities to help children and young people thrive.

·?????? support communities to enable people to live healthier lives.

Looking Ahead

We look forward to playing our part in national and community renewal. Undoubtedly in coming days, whether the legislative programme in tomorrow’s King’s Speech, or the weeks and months beyond, more detail and initiatives will come and we’ll expect to play strong added value.

The National Lottery funds ￡30m of good cause activity every week, and we have ambitious plans with a new operator to grow returns to good causes, and their reach and impact, in coming years.

Here at the National Lottery Community Fund, we’re receiving an idea dreamed up and developed in a community every three minutes. So, the challenge and opportunity for new work and grip on national and community renewal is one we embrace.

We’re on this, and ready to go another gear.

Change can happen if we all work together, and it starts with community.

#ItStartsWithCommunity