Communities and the Big Society

Creating 'the Big Society' - a genuine partnership between citizen and state - will mean being clear about the decisions local communities will - and won't - be able to make and providing a support structure to manage this new dialogue and collaboration. 

These principles are even more important in poor communities where public services generally play a more prominent role in people's lives and where the skills and capacity to make informed choices and to influence the design of those services are at their lowest. 

Organisations such as Groundwork have an important role to play in helping disadvantaged communities play an active role in the Big Society.  There are two strands to this work:

• involving communities in local decision-making around service provision, policing and planning etc
• developing communities so that the structures and the knowledge exist for local people to make their own decisions and take collective action on issues as diverse as energy or education

Neither central government nor local authorities can make this happen on their own.  Effective community development - particularly in communities characterised by disaffection and transitory populations - is a difficult and long-term task.  It requires the involvement of neutral 'brokers', organisations that can help communities to organise and grow but which can also act as the glue between the statutory sector and the myriad local groups and interests that exist in a locality.

It is Groundwork's experience - borne of three decades of delivery - that community action takes root most effectively in deprived areas when communities have the opportunity to deliver something practical and tangible in a timescale that makes them realise genuine change is possible. 

• Laying the Groundwork for a Bigger Society

  

  Publication looking at role Groundwork is playing to help disadvantaged communities develop and shape their own future

• Creating a positive Big Society

  

  Examining the challenges and opportunities of creating a Big Society that's beneficial for all.

• Mars in the Community

  

  The whole community got involved to revamp a park in Mowbray, Leicestershire.

• Changing Places, Engaging People

  

  Groundwork East of England worked on a £400k programme of community work in twelve different projects over 18 months

• Junior Wardens

  

  The Junior Wardens project aims to get young people aged 8-14 active in their communities.