New Local is looking for senior officers from across our Network, who are at the cutting edge of Community Power and are working to make it a reality in their area. This intimate and select group is made up of senior...

28th November, 2023


New Local is looking for senior officers from across our Network, who are at the cutting edge of Community Power and are working to make it a reality in their area. This intimate and select group is made up of senior...

28th November, 2023


New Local is looking for senior officers from across our Network, who are at the cutting edge of Community Power and are working to make it a reality in their area. This intimate and select group is made up of senior...

28th November, 2023


New Local is looking for senior officers from across our Network, who are at the cutting edge of Community Power and are working to make it a reality in their area. This intimate and select group is made up of senior...

28th November, 2023


New Local is looking for senior officers from across our Network, who are at the cutting edge of Community Power and are working to make it a reality in their area. This intimate and select group is made up of senior...

23rd November, 2023


Council leaders have set out a roadmap for reforming public services and rebuilding trust under a future Labour government, starting with giving meaningful power and influence to communities. 

26th September, 2023


Places need new types of leaders, ones who increasingly collaborate with staff and communities to tackle today’s biggest challenges. This type of leadership is about starting to shift power to put others in the driving seat.

16th January, 2023


Ideas and reflections on the challenges of: Developing a simple narrative that is owned by partners and communities, not just the council, and reflects the diversity of voices and experiences in the place; Making the narrative meaningful in practice and...

19th May, 2022


How can we measure long-term change in an area? Lily O’Flynn shares tools and advice for evaluating place-based change.

16th May, 2022


Places need new types of leadership, people who increasingly collaborate with staff and communities to tackle today’s biggest challenges. This type of leadership is about starting to shift power to put others in the driving seat. Walking alongside communities,...

14th April, 2022


A round-up of some of the most notable take-aways from New Local’s festival of community power.

13th April, 2022


The Relationship Project's David Robinson shares a framework for making relationships essential to public services, not a 'nice to have'.

8th December, 2021


James Arrowsmith of Browne Jacobson shares his insights on how to overcome the fear of risk in your organisation.

15th November, 2021


Ideas and reflections centred around three main challenges: Engaging the whole community on climate change. Telling an external story connecting local and global environmental issues. Ensuring climate change is a priority across the council.

8th November, 2021


Councils share their lessons learned from partnerships with Europe, Miami-Dade County in Florida, and with a charity in Sierra Leone.

22nd July, 2021


Last month, Camden Council became the 54th member of New Local’s network of councils. Director Nick Kimber explores how community power is helping to build a better borough, and why learning and sharing with peers is more vital than...

28th June, 2021


Six key factors to consider when setting up a commission that will help you maximise impact.

22nd June, 2021


Robyn Vinter on how people in the north of England are hungry for change in their area, and why it needs to be locally-led to succeed.

21st June, 2021


New Local board member Raj Jain on moving beyond an "ill-health service".

8th June, 2021


What are the practical ways to make community power an everyday practice, not just a long-term ambition?

3rd June, 2021


Balancing short-term and long-term political and financial pressures with the imperative to respond meaningfully to the climate emergency.

25th May, 2021


Steve Skinner explores the features of strong communities and how local authorities can support them - from the grassroots up.

25th May, 2021


Andy Galloway shares the 'culture hacks' that can help you put people first in your organisation, from the impact of job titles to changing what you measure.

21st April, 2021


FutureGov's Craig Morbey reflects on the most common challenges that councils face when trying to implement community power approaches and how to overcome them.

12th April, 2021


PPL's Claire Kennedy on why 'now' is always the best time for change, and how to get started.

7th April, 2021


Giving local government more power isn’t a zero-sum game for central government. It can help the civil service improve as well. How devolution could be the missing ingredient of the government’s efforts to reform Whitehall.

17th March, 2021


Our Budget 2021 explainer for local community funding - from the difference between the Community Renewal Fund and the Community Ownership Fund.

3rd March, 2021


Pivoting from the short-term emergency response to Covid-19 towards long-term organic community development.

24th February, 2021


Danny Dorling is a social geographer speaking at Stronger Things 2021.

19th February, 2021


Avoiding a drift back to old norms and ways of working, addressing exclusion and preserving accountability.

15th February, 2021


The Covid-19 pandemic has shone a light on how the UK functions: how decisions are made and by whom; the interlocking - or isolated - roles of health care, local government and the private sector - and the 'heroic'...

1st February, 2021


Covid-19 has brought unimaginable hardship to local communites, but it has also sparked a shift in mindset, culture and practice that helped many get through the pandemic and will provide valuable lessons for how councils and communities combine to...

13th January, 2021


A vlog from Katie Kelly, Depute Chief Executive - Safer Communities, at East Ayshire Council in Scotland. In 2013, Katie helped set up the council's Vibrant Communities Service - a ground-breaking approach to sharing power between the local authority...

7th December, 2020


The pandemic showed how much central government tightens its grip in a crisis. But it's the connection with local goverrment, not just power that's the problem.

6th October, 2020


How to build a shared agenda and tackle big decisions with elected members.

22nd September, 2020


This report offers a how-to guide for organisations interested in this process, illustrating a range of potential strategies to build active, networked and powerful communities.

29th July, 2020


How to identify what to measure and get buy-in for assessing impact.

30th April, 2020


Under pressure following criticism of his approach to testing for Covid-19, at the start of April Health Secretary Matt Hancock announced a new target: the government would be carrying out 100,000 tests a day by the end of April....

29th April, 2020


Central Government is inevitably a major factor in a council’s success. Whitehall is home to funds and powers that can either help unlock transformation and impact or stymie ambitious plans for change. Ministers and MPs also play the chief...

1st April, 2020


The last few years have seen scores of councils publish inclusive growth plans – a radical admission that the economy, as presently constructed, is failing to deliver for millions of people. This has been an overwhelmingly positive development, and...

15th February, 2020


Between 2010 and 2020, the UK experienced something unprecedented in recent history – a decade without a recession. Yet, somehow, this period also saw the lowest levels of wage growth for British workers for any ten-year period since the...

12th February, 2020


This report looks at how the concept of inclusive growth is being interpreted by practitioners in the field and work backwards towards understanding, rather than attempting a new theoretical framing.

11th February, 2020


Is a growing economy something to celebrate when the benefits it brings are out of reach to many? While the economy grew as a whole in the 2017/18 financial year, the poorest 20 per cent of the population actually...

11th February, 2020


Exploring how to manage demand using insights from behavioural science.

13th December, 2019


How to overcome common challenges and think strategically when implementing climate change policy.

4th December, 2019


Many of us in the local government sector are all too well acquainted with you the negative side of the budgeting process. As demand seems to consistently rise, money gets scarcer and less certain.

4th December, 2019


Local authorities experience considerable difficulties as they budget to keep vital services going whilst facing uncertainty about their future finances, and this is exacerbated when they are unsure when a longer-term settlement can be achieved.

4th December, 2019


Insights of changing organisational cultures in councils from chief executives.

29th November, 2019


Exploring the importance of prototyping in developing an innovation.

28th November, 2019


This report focuses on learning from international examples to prevent and eradicate rough sleeping. It proposes that the UK and devolved governments work with mid-sized cities and places to trial a series of policies, initiatives and collaborations with a...

25th November, 2019