Consultancy

Locality provides support to Local Authorities, Clinical Commissioning Groups, grant funders, housing associations, social investors, and many other institutions which are pivotal in supporting community organisations. Contact us to find out if we can help you.

Examples include:
• Administering the national Neighbourhood Planning programme on behalf of Government, with over £30 million grant and support made between 2018 – 2022 to enable the development of neighbourhood plans or neighbourhood development orders.

• Delivering the Place Based Social Action programme on behalf of Department for Culture Media and Sport and the Community Fund.

•Providing support to community organisations in experiencing crisis for funders such as Sport England, Lloyds Bank Foundation, Power to Change, and Esmée Fairbairn Foundation.

• Managing grant funded programmes supported by Community Fund and Sport England focussing upon community organisations led by, or serving the needs of, individuals from racialised communities and other underepresented organisations.

• Research and publication creation for Power to Change and Local Trust including the Community Hub Handbook.

Local authorities, Clinical Commissioning Groups, and other service providers are dealing with unprecedented demand coupled with reductions in funding.

Locality can help service providers explore more effective and efficient ways of delivering their services in partnership with community organisations. We have experience in local service transformation and provide support in areas including:

• Innovations in commissioning and procurement - We can help you develop new and creative approaches to commissioning and procurement including co-design approaches and innovative forms of contracting.

• Our ‘Keep it Local’ work involves supporting local authorities to maximise the use of local (particularly VCS) suppliers through a range of mechanisms. Find out more about our Keep it Local programme.

Transferring assets to the community can transform them into spaces where everyone belongs and where lives are transformed. Buildings become revitalised, and new essential services are created that enable communities to thrive.

Locality is recognised as the leading national authority on Community Asset Transfer. We can help with:

• Strategy, policy, and procedures – we’ve helped many local authorities develop effective strategies and fair, transparent processes for transferring assets. We have model strategy documents, business plans, application processes, leases, and guidance for local groups and councils.

• Support for community organisations - many local authorities and funders have commissioned us to support local community organisations, to ensure any asset transfer will be viable long-term. We can help with everything from creating legal structures and revenue development to community engagement and measuring impact.

• Levering grant and investment – we have a track record of helping attract major investment into community assets, such as grants, loan finance and even community shares.

• Community hubs - we have substantial experience helping develop large multi-purpose community assets, with multiple interrelated business units and sources of income.

Locality are the leading national experts on community ownership and management of assets. We provide expertise and support, and we connect community organisations who are managing similar spaces.

We help communities own and manage land and buildings including community centres, as well as local spaces like shops, libraries, swimming pools, pubs, green spaces and more, protecting them for future generations. Community ownership helps places thrive and creates long-term resilience for community organisations.

We can help with business planning, governance, community engagement, monitoring and evaluation and the finances involved in running community-owned assets. We can support plans which incorporate both capital and revenue phases, and ensure resilient business models which are not reliant upon revenue grants.

We can also advise on transferring ownership of valued community assets, through Community Rights to Bid (Assets of Community Value) and through Community Assets Transfer.

We have worked with many commissioners, funders, and others to design and deliver local funding and investment. We’ve designed funding schemes that help start-ups, or increase the capacity of existing community organisations, or focus on specific challenges such as health inequalities, skill gaps, or vulnerable families.

And we’ve developed programmes that focus on helping marginalised groups such as organisations led by, or responding to the needs of, racialised communities.

We can hold and distribute grant funding directly or we can design the infrastructure which would enable you to do this. We can help with:

• Programme design including applications portals, pro forma, guidance materials, application assessment processes
• Pre-application training and workshops for potential applicants, as well as one-to-one advice and support
• Managing financial transactions associated with making grant awards
• For successful applicants, monitoring progress including reporting on spend and impact.

We also strongly recommend providing support to organisations to build their capacity and confidence alongside grant funding.

Sometimes known as 'Funder Plus', we have done this for the government’s Community Ownership Fund and Neighbourhood Planning grant programmes, and programmes funded by the National Lottery Community Fund, Greater London Authority, Lloyds Foundation, and various other local authorities, funders and private organisations.

Independent evaluations show that providing capacity and business support alongside grant funding leads to more successful and sustainable grant-making, particularly providing better support to marginalised and smaller groups.

The evidence shows it builds confidence and helps organisations plan, manage finances, engage with their community, and make better decisions. It also helps organisations increase their income. By growing, they then have more of a positive impact on their area.

We help local groups create new and affordable homes, and bring empty homes back into use, to meet local needs. Community-led housing projects are usually developed by or partnership with a community organisation, and the local community builds, owns, and manages or stewards the homes in a manner of their choosing.

Our advisors across the country have extensive experience working on community-led housing and community ownership projects – so commissioning Locality will give your project the best chance of success. We’ve worked with everyone from very small schemes to those building some of the biggest, most ambitious community housing projects in Europe.

• We offer bespoke support for community-led housing groups at all stages, including choosing a legal structure, establishing financial viability, and developing detailed business plans including complex financial information.

• We can help organisations become Registered Providers of Social Housing so they can access large amounts of capital grant to build new affordable housing.

• We have helped local authorities bring underutilised land and property back into use by transferring ownership to community led housing groups.

We have a strong track record in evaluating projects and programmes, and showing the impact that community organisations can make, across health and wellbeing, youth services, business support programmes, and family support schemes. This includes:

• Data analysis and interpretation, including output, outcome, and broader impact data, including performance against baseline data.

• Research and literature reviews including developing an understanding of the national and local context.

• Obtaining qualitative data from business process mapping, project observations, and policy/ process reviews - crucial to identifying underpinning programme mechanics and mechanisms of change.

• Using semi-structured interviews and workshops to obtain in-depth information to support recommendations for improvements

• Use of analytical tools such as Cost Benefit Analysis to identify the monetary value of impact delivered, including savings in public spending.

• Producing comprehensive and accessible impact and evaluation reports, including insightful recommendations to support decisions about future ways of working.

• Utilising the results of evaluation to inform the development of effective social impact frameworks which can be essential in justifying the continuation of funding.

Locality supports community engagement in three main areas:

• Time limited engagement exercises generally focussed upon a specific development, regeneration programme, or project (engaging over 2,500 people in some cases)
• Supporting to deliver your own community engagement exercises and building your capacity in this area
• Embedding community engagement processes within service delivery on a permanent basis, achieving both practical and cultural change

Locality practices a blended approach to community engagement, which maximises the richness of information obtained:

• Utilising sophisticated online engagement tools designed for high volumes of responses. This includes using interactive maps and surveys
• Resident interviews (one to one or one to many) – face to face, telephone, or web conferencing technology
• On-street surveys, often accompanied by exhibition materials• Focus groups - both online and offline, to generate discussion between people to create a greater depth of information
• Community drop-in days held at local venues
• Visioning days – used to support the creation of a vision for a community including themes and different project ideas