Tag: Community Power

It's been three months since we launched Waves. This is the first in a series of blogs where we’ll share what we’ve discovered, how our thinking has evolved and what we’re finding challenging.

6th August, 2025

AI • Community Power • Digital Democracy • Future Councils • Waves

Mayoral Combined Authorities (MCAs) have never truly been designed; they’ve evolved. Greater Manchester — the starter culture for all MCAs — looked like a reasonably recognisable set of shared functional […]

21st July, 2025

Community Power • English Devo Bill • Future Councils • Mayoral Combined Authorities • Steve Skelton • Strategic authorities

‘If you were going to design English local government from scratch, you wouldn’t have come up with this.’ Versions of this observation will be familiar to many in and around […]

18th July, 2025

Community Power • English Devo Bill • LGR • Local Councils • Place-Based Public Service Reform

Working collaboratively with communities and partners to help create vibrant and thriving places is a focus for many local authorities. Bringing everyone along on the journey and doing this during/following local […]

16th July, 2025

Community Power • Partnerships • Place

This member-exclusive Innovation Explored focuses on our first Waves Learning Network session on digital democracy.

8th July, 2025

AI • Community Power • Digital Democracy • Innovation • Waves

Responding to Government announcements today, Place-Based Public Service Budgets report co-authors, New Local Chief Executive Jessica Studdert and Professorial Research Fellow at Southampton University John Denham, said: “We are pleased to see […]

3rd July, 2025

Community Power • Future Councils • Place-Based Public Service Reform • Total Place

Last month, New Local announced its partnership with Demos on Waves – the largest trial of digital democracy in Britain to date. The Waves project aims to create a digital […]

26th June, 2025

Community Power • Demos • Digital Democracy • Future Councils • Waves

About the Project We worked with Westmorland and Furness Council as a strategic partner to help shape a shared vision, strategic approach, and delivery plan for Community Power. As part […]

26th June, 2025

Community Power • Future Councils • Strategy and leadership • Westmorland and Furness Council

Where People Meet: How to Celebrate, Sustain and Reimagine Community Centres’ was commissioned by the Rayne Trust, to explore the distinct and valuable part that community centres play in people’s lives across the UK.

24th June, 2025

Birmingham • Bradford • Community centres • Community Power • Rayne Trust • Stroud

About the Project New Local partnered with Vale of Glamorgan Public Services Board (PSB) to design and deliver a series of multi-stakeholder workshops focused on improving local services across three […]

20th June, 2025

Community Power • Employment • Health • Strategy and leadership

What do you get when you combine collective expertise, healthy debate, and optimism? You get Stronger Things 2025, of course!

12th June, 2025

Community Power • Georgia Gould MP • Local government • Stronger Things

New Local is convening this peer-led session with chief executives and senior officers involved in LGR to explore how in practice community-led ways of working and collaboration can enabled through […]

5th June, 2025

Community Power • LGR • Place building

John Denham and Jessica Studdert set out five reasons why now is the time for Total Place 2.0.

29th May, 2025

Community Power • Local government • Spending Review • Total Place

This thinkpiece by the leading social explorer Cormac Russell focuses on how to realign the relationship between institutions and communities. He sets out how better understanding and working alongside the […]

21st May, 2025

Asset-Based Community Development • Community Power

Laura Billings tells us how TPXimpact developed community power standards with Manchester City Council.

15th May, 2025

Community Power • Manchester City Council • Strategy and leadership • TPXimpact

Achieving change within a council can sometimes feel like being a mountaineer, writes Mike Greene, Chief Executive of Stockton-on-Tees Borough Council.

13th May, 2025

Community Power • Mike Greene • mission-based • Stockton-on-Tees Borough Council

Grace Duffy, Director of Policy, Influencing and Engagement at Bridges Outcomes Partnership, tells us about their work with local authorities and partnerships they have developed to build better outcomes for residents.

13th May, 2025

Community Power • Local government • Partnerships • Public Services

The biggest redesign of public services in a generation lies ahead. As councils try to work out what new model could adequately respond to the complex demands on them, community-powered […]

8th May, 2025

Community Power • Inner Circle Consulting • Stronger Things

How can we build consensus on polarising issues in our communities? What opportunities might AI-powered technology offer to make this process easier, cheaper, and quicker? We are working with Demos […]

7th May, 2025

AI • Community Power • Events • Waves

New Local is working with Demos to test a new AI-powered technology and process intended to make deliberative democracy quicker, easier, and cheaper.

7th May, 2025

AI • Community Power • Demos • Waves

Community centres have long stood as pillars of local life, but we are losing these spaces at pace and at scale. Summer Simpson explores why this matters.

7th May, 2025

Community assets • Community engagement • Community Power • Health and social care

This report sets out the vital role that community centres play in local areas and makes the case for investing in their future.

7th May, 2025

Community assets • Community centres • Community engagement • Community Power • Local government

Alice Black, Sophie Taylor and Sue Sheehan explain how the London Borough of Camden is embracing neighbourhood ways of working.

22nd April, 2025

Community engagement • Community Power • Local government • Strategy and leadership

Cllr Beverley Egan is a councillor for Thundersley in south-east Essex. In 2023, she was appointed to chair of Essex Council’s Caring Communities Commission, an ambitious two-year look at the […]

5th February, 2025

Community Power • Health and social care • Public Services

As the Government’s agenda for local government, devolution and public services takes shape, a ‘new local’ is emerging, built on the principles of power, prevention and place.

27th January, 2025

Community Power • Local government • Place-based budgets • Politics • Prevention • Public Services

The government needs an overarching strategy for public service reform that dispenses with traditional Whitehall ‘business as usual’ assumptions, writes Jessica Studdert.

13th December, 2024

Central government • Community Power • Local government • Public Services • Strategy and leadership

Rob Thomas, Chief Executive of Vale of Glamorgan Council, tells us about the council’s deepening partnership approach, why there’s no ‘one size fits all’ approach to delivering vital local services, what community power means to the council, and why...

26th November, 2024

Community Power • Local government • Strategy and leadership

The complexities of transforming health services are vast with many different priorities and variables to consider. Place-based systems leadership can unlock barriers and open doors within services to help deliver […]

11th November, 2024

Community Power • Health and social care • Integrated Health Systems

Building community cohesion where trust and a sense of belonging are paramount is imperative to help communities and places thrive. We have seen recently what happens without a long-term commitment […]

11th November, 2024

Community Cohesion • Community Power

Adopting a ‘communities in the lead’ approach is gaining traction across local authorities. What this means for different places varies, but the focus of improving the lives of residents and […]

11th November, 2024

Community Power • Strategy and leadership

Caroline Wilson, Director of Inclusive Economy and Jobs at Islington Borough Council, explains how the council’s approach to community wealth building has emerged and deepened, how it’s helping to tackle inequalities, and how it touches the lives of people...

11th November, 2024

Community engagement • Community Power • Economy and business • Local government

The new Government has an opportunity to shift the institutions at SW1 to actively seek insight beyond its small postcode, says Jessica Studdert.

11th November, 2024

Central government • Community Power • Devolution and reorganisation • Local government • Policy • Public Services

In North Birkenhead a unique programme is joining up services and putting community priorities at the heart of decision making, creating impact that could be a model for national policy change.

7th November, 2024

Community Power • Local government • Public Services • Social Care • Total Place

New Local is working with the Rayne Trust to deliver research into the role that community assets play in public life.

5th November, 2024

Community assets • Community Power • Infrastructure

New Local worked with partners in Yorkshire and Cumbria to develop a learning programme that puts communities at the heart of health and care.

5th November, 2024

Community Power • Health and social care

A new report from think tank New Local warns that the government’s plans for housebuilding targets will be at risk unless the planning system gives communities more power and influence […]

23rd October, 2024

Community Power • Housing • Regeneration

How can community power unlock our fraught planning system?

21st October, 2024

Community Power • Housing • Local government • Place building • Planning • Regeneration

We put Hal Khanom in our ‘How We Did It’ hot seat to hear how the London Borough of Barnet has developed its equalities strategy, A Fairer Barnet.

17th October, 2024

Community engagement • Community Power • Equality • Local government • Strategy and leadership

About the Project Calderdale Council and the Calderdale Inclusive Economy Board worked with New Local to refresh their inclusive economy strategy. The overarching aim of the strategy is that by […]

25th September, 2024

Community Power • Inclusive Economy • Inclusive Growth • Strategy and leadership

Matthew China, Policy, Insight and Communications Manager at Wealden District Council tells us about Wealden’s ambition to become a community-powered council, how it’s building on strong foundations to take on the challenges of the future, and some of the...

10th September, 2024

Community Power • Local government • Place building • Strategy and leadership

Enfield Council’s Grace Murray shares ten pointers for community-powered leadership.

5th September, 2024

Community Power • Leadership • Public Services • Strategy and leadership

By listening to and valuing the insights of communities, the public sector can build better services, improve outcomes and use limited resources more wisely. But what are the essential ingredients for effective collaboration? And how can you overcome barriers...

14th August, 2024

Collaboration • Community engagement • Community Power • Local government • Public Services • Wellbeing

New Local worked with the newly formed Westmorland and Furness Council to develop a vision, strategic approach and delivery plan to put communities at the heart of its operating model.

12th August, 2024

Community engagement • Community Power • Local government • Strategy and leadership

New Local Chair Katie Kelly talks to Shaheen Warren from our practice team ahead of our brand-new Radical Leaders event in September. Expect topics from leadership icons to Damascene moments and finding courage through collaboration.

29th July, 2024

Community Power • Leadership • Local government • Public Services • Strategy and leadership

Sometimes even the most well-meaning idea can be turned into a source of polarisation and anger. How can deliberative and consensus-building approaches be used to take the heat out of public discourse? Five changemakers share their insights.

22nd July, 2024

Community Cohesion • Community engagement • Community Power • Stronger Things 2024

Neighbourhood ways of working are being considered by many councils as a way to bring them closer to their communities. The opportunities it can foster include building better relationships and delivering […]

19th July, 2024

Community Power • Neighbourhood

New MPs have arrived for their first day on the job, the Cabinet is in post, and the wheels of government are turning once more. Catriona Maclay puts forward nine lessons that can be learnt from local government.

11th July, 2024

Central government • Community Power • Local government • Politics • Public Services • Strategy and leadership

Lydia Hutchings and Beth Kilheeney explain how the Greater Manchester Better Outcomes Partnership works with young people to prevent homelessness and how the project is being evaluated.

11th July, 2024

Community Power • Homelessness • Measurement and Evaluation • Public Services • Young people

Real-time data is a powerful tool for councils. Throughout the life cycle of a project, data can show what works and what doesn’t, leading to better decision making and improved outcomes.

10th July, 2024

Community engagement • Community Power

What support do community businesses need to build resilience against the impact of the climate crisis and the rising cost-of-living?

17th June, 2024

Climate change • Community business • Community Power • Cost of Living Crisis • Economy and business • Local economies