Locality, in partnership with Power to Change and Local Trust, worked with four local authorities on an action research project to show how councils can drive forward a radical new localism agenda.
71%
of people feel they have little or no control over local decisions.
We’ve worked with community organisations, Big Locals, councillors and council officers in Cornwall, Southwark, Stevenage and Wigan to find out more about the drivers, enablers and barriers to localism.
How councils can shift power to communities
Our report ‘Power Partnerships’ outlines the key ways for local authorities to shift power to people, build local capacity and ownership, and put neighbourhoods in the lead. This includes a six-step roadmap for councils to:
- Co-create the vision for localism with communities
- Match the ambition with internal organisational change
- Map community assets and governance capacity
- Invest directly in community infrastructure
- Embed the power partnership in community engagement and local governance
- Provide flexible funding for local social action.
Find out more
You can find out more detail in our full Power Partnerships report.
What happened in the four areas we worked with
We worked with four areas across England, all at different stages of a localism journey, with different governance and priorities. We wanted to explore how different areas were enabling localism, if there were any common barriers and successes. Find out what we learned:
Power Partnerships: learning from Cornwall (.PDF)
Power Partnerships: learning from Stevenage (.PDF)