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Turning neighbourhood momentum into lasting public service reform

February 5, 2026  
Grace Pollard

Right now, everyone is talking about neighbourhoods. From the ambition for a neighbourhood health service in the NHS 10 year plan, to Pride in Place, this new spirit of intent and ambition for neighbourhood working is certainly welcome. But this isn’t a new policy idea whose time will come and go. Rather, it is part of an organic and growing place-based public service reform agenda that can no longer be confined to the margins.

Local authorities – with their diverse range of functions, strong connections to place and democratic mandate – are uniquely placed to steward this way of working and many are already experimenting with the potential of neighbourhoods as an organising principle.  At New Local, we’re excited by both this growing energy and the potential for a national policy agenda to meaningfully connect with and amplify patient, long-term work happening in places. In order to find out more, we brought together a group from our local authorities network to explore how they’re approaching neighbourhood working and their ambitions for the future.

  • Tell a clear, consistent story
    It is all too easy for the range of council and partner activity happening in neighbourhoods to feel disparate and disconnected. Councils and partners need to develop a strong narrative about the what and the how: what they are trying to achieve in neighbourhoods and how they are working – with each other and with communities and partners – to get there.
    Our network members particularly reflected on the importance of relational practice, asset-based approaches and participatory ways of working being at the core of their approach to working in neighbourhoods.
  • Use it to unlock deeper collaboration
    Councils work in neighbourhoods in a wide range of ways, including delivering statutory and universal services (potentially in co-location arrangements or in integrated teams), hosting community-led decision-making processes, community development work and in physical infrastructure. Each of these areas are likely delivered by different teams, each with different priorities and ways of working.
    Using neighbourhoods as an organising principle brings them together around a geographic footprint, but to connect them deeply requires intentional work. Examples of how this could be done include ensuring that statutory services are networked with the wider public sector, VCSE and more informal community support, or developing ways for communities to be more closely connected to institutional decision-making on improvements to neighbourhood spaces and assets.
  • Build learning in
    Working in neighbourhoods provides opportunities to develop more bespoke approaches (attuned to context, challenges, opportunities and assets) and to start small and test out different ways of working.
    There is immense value in developing and prioritising learning about what is working in different neighbourhoods – creating ways to identify common patterns as well as distinct challenges. Learning should be action-oriented and focused on building on energy and momentum, overcoming barriers and spotting opportunities to grow particular approaches or ways of working.

With a number of departments across Whitehall developing policy and programmes centred on neighbourhood approaches, there is also a valuable opportunity for national policymakers to support the role of local authorities as the stewards of the approach. They can start by doing two things:  

  • Position neighbourhood working as fundamental to public service reform
    There is clear momentum and energy building around neighbourhood working, both in local areas and in policy and government programmes. But there isn’t a strong story linking different strands of work across Whitehall and anchoring them into a wider narrative about place-based public service reform. The government should build on the three principles for public service reform (integration, prevention and devolution), set out in the 2025 Spending Review, to develop a strong narrative that binds neighbourhood-level programmes and other PSR initiatives across government departments.
    Bringing this alive would offer a valuable rhetorical and practical tool to help senior leaders in councils, the NHS and civil society navigate the complicated and messy reality of partnership working in neighbourhoods.
  • Help local leaders join up neighbourhood activity
    With the proliferation of neighbourhood-focused activity, councils and partners can often end up managing multiple programmes trying to achieve similar outcomes. Policymakers developing neighbourhood-focused programmes should look to align with existing programmes where possible. Creating flexibility to allow areas to knit together different strands of work and enabling them to invest in learning both within and between programmes will also support the impact of this work to grow beyond short-term pilots.

This is an exciting time for neighbourhood working, with momentum and energy across both policy and practice. Even more excitingly, neighbourhoods can provide an anchor for the kind of public service reform the government has set its sights on: deepening community action, facilitating purposeful collaboration across sectors and organisations, bringing services together around geographic footprints and catalysing relational working. The challenge now is not to agree whether neighbourhood working matters, but instead to get on with the job of making it the foundation of public service reform.

Image Credit: Photo by BEN ELLIOTT on Unsplash


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