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Communities in charge

Why communities should be put in charge of the government’s post-Brexit fund for economic regeneration.

The Communities in Charge Campaign is a coalition of local people, community groups, businesses, and national organisations. We are calling for communities to be put directly in charge of the government’s post-Brexit fund for economic regeneration, the UK Shared Prosperity Fund (UKSPF).

Communities in Charge
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Communities in Charge Report

Communities in Charge Report

Published: 10 August 2022
25 minute read
1 document

Why communities should be in charge

The UKSPF is a once in a generation chance for those communities most in need of ‘levelling up’ to secure the resources they need to build their own prosperity. But it will only work if communities themselves are put in charge of it. That is because communities know the unique needs of their neighbourhood. And community organisations are concentrated in exactly the places most in need of ‘levelling up’.

The campaign has long proposed that at least a quarter of the UKSPF is controlled by neighbourhood-level partnerships between local organisations, local councils, small businesses and residents. That way the money will reach the initiatives that will really make a real difference.

In summer 2022, the government published its prospectus for the UKSPF which confirmed that local councils will be in charge of the fund. Crucially, it also insisted that ‘local partnerships’ should be established to decide how to spend the money.

As councils prepare their investment plans, we have produced a briefing for local authorities to show how they can support community organisations to play their full role in the UKSPF.