Resident-led community action somewhat famously doesn’t just happen – it often requires a range of dedicated support, delivered in a variety of ways. The Big Local programme was no different. From the outset in 2011 a support offer was made available through the programme to residents of the 150 Big Local areas. As the programme developed, the nature and delivery of support evolved. This article charts the journey of support in the programme over time, drawing lessons for future programmes from how support was delivered in Big Local. Another article explores what the needs of Big Local areas were and how they were identified.
Taking the programme as a whole, support was envisaged as working through four building blocks.
First, from the beginning central support was available to Big Local areas through Local Trust’s programme management. This involved practical guides, toolkits and other how-to resources, along with sample documents, templates, blogs, and case studies. These written resources aimed to guide emerging partnerships through the design and ethos of the programme, and through first steps and basic requirements. The resources offered suggestions and options without being overly prescriptive. Over time, Local Trust invested in building its programme management, research and area advisory capacity, enabling a more proactive approach to support to be introduced in the final phase of the programme.
The second building block was continuous in-area support. Each area had a relatively close, ongoing, and flexible relationship with a dedicated and experienced community development or regeneration professional. Their role was to offer tailored support to each area, and to share updates, successes, and challenges back to Local Trust. This model for providing guidance and advice directly to Big Local partnerships was initially coordinated by an external agency but was later brought in-house and adjusted several times as the programme developed. In addition, each Big Local area contracted a locally trusted organisation (LTO) to provide back-office support, such as facilitating access to the funding and managing programme finances, but also employing workers where applicable and holding leases on behalf of unincorporated partnerships.
The third building block was a range of peer networking opportunities, in which Big Local areas could engage as they wished. These included learning clusters on specific topics, regional clusters, workshops and an annual residential conference bringing together all Big Local areas. Peer networking opportunities were a constant across the programme, but their form and focus were adapted according to need and take-up.
The fourth block was technical support, made available by external partners contracted to engage with Big Local areas on specific topics and issues, such as managing community assets, social investment and developing social entrepreneurs, environment and climate change, communications, and measuring change. The range of external partners, and the nature of contractual arrangements, varied over time. Initially, Local Trust and partners agreed broader contracts with volume targets. When it emerged that demand for and take-up of specific offers could vary and take time to develop, the approach shifted to contracts that were specific to each Big Local area to enable support partners to better plan their time.
A Big Local partnership was a group made up of at least eight people that guided the overall direction of delivery in a Big Local area.
A locally trusted organisation (LTO) was the organisation chosen by people in a Big Local area or the partnership to administer and account for funding, and/or deliver activities or services on behalf of a partnership. Areas might have worked with more than one locally trusted organisation depending on the plan and the skills and resources required.
The purpose, form and intensity of the support offer evolved over time, both with the dynamics of the programme itself and through learning what worked when, and for whom. Three main phases of the programme and accompanying support were identifiable: getting started, delivery, and spending out.
In the ‘getting started’ phase (around 2011-12 to 2015–16), residents in each area were supported to establish a Big Local partnership, develop a plan reflecting local peoples’ priorities, engage with local people and other local partners, set objectives and formulate delivery plans. For the most part, targeted support in this phase was provided by a group of organisations that had formed a consortium to develop the Big Local programme in the first place. Some of the support offered in this phase was subsequently seen as less relevant for what were still fledgling and slowly coalescing Big Local partnerships (see below).
The ‘delivery’ phase ran from roughly 2016–17 to 2021–22. It saw Big Local partnerships becoming more heavily involved in implementing their plans for change, encountering new challenges of sustaining momentum and enthusiasm in the partnership, engaging the wider community, and making things happen. With greater knowledge of local plans, challenges, and the diverse support needs exhibited across Big Local areas, Local Trust reviewed the overall support offer and developed a new approach. The in-area community development professional role was widened, as was the range of support offers and partners, with new contracting arrangements and more emphasis on facilitating networking and peer support. Support was still available, but relatively light-touch (in that it was largely left to Big Local areas to choose the support they needed).
A concluding ‘spending out’ phase was evident from 2021–22 through to the end of the programme in 2026. This phase focused on ensuring Big Local areas successfully spent their allocated £1.15m and delivered their plans. Following an in-depth internal review of support in 2021, Local Trust adopted a more proactive and targeted programme management role in organising, marketing and brokering an enhanced model of support, rolled out from mid-2022. A range of external partners were available to provide support packages of up to 10 days to individual Big Local areas on topics that would enable the delivery of plans, such as securing a community asset, measuring change, income generation, community engagement and volunteer support, communications and recharging the partnership. Supported by clearer communications and access, take-up of the enhanced support offer was encouraging.
Local Trust also developed occasional and ad hoc initiatives to complement the four main building blocks of support. The most significant was the Community Leadership Academy, piloted in 2019 and introduced from August 2020 to support and develop established and emerging community leaders. It worked with individual participants in three cohorts in a programme of learning and networking opportunities, including coaching sessions, group learning workshops, masterclasses and residentials – focused on leading oneself, others, and communities.
Four main reflections emerged from the experience of delivering support, offering learning for future programmes.
First: support must be flexible enough to accommodate variations between Big Local areas and over time. Although areas may share many support needs, they also start from their own unique positions: some may have existing capabilities and networks to build on, while others may have far fewer. Many such areas may not know what support they need, or how to access or make the most of it; indeed, it is a paradox of support that those who may need it the most may also lack the resources to access it. Across the board, resident-led change is hugely demanding, and support must be able to respond quickly to everyday challenges and wider, more complex issues (such as resolving conflict).
Second: support throughout the Big Local programme can broadly be seen as a delicate balance between two imperatives: on the one hand there is a Local Trust-led approach, which is relatively prescriptive, and on the other a locally self-directed approach, which is bottom-up and organic. Each approach has its pros and cons, but the lines between them are also blurred and complex; in practice, support delivery involves elements of both, and changes as the programme timeline develops.
Third: responsive and effective support is based on establishing trust between Big Local areas and support providers, and this affects residents’ judgment of its quality and value. Support has needed to be relevant, timely, credible and relatable, delivered by providers who ‘get it’, in the sense of understanding both the ethos of the programme and the dynamics and challenges of resident-led activity. Sometimes support organised by Local Trust but delivered through national organisations – while well-intentioned and of high quality – needed to be shaped more to local circumstances in order for residents to actually engage with it.
Fourth: resident-led change is a complicated and often untidy process combining advances and successes with setbacks and reversals. Led by busy and often over-stretched people, it often takes more time than anticipated. Given this, support must be patient – that is, able to work with the rhythms and timelines of communities and partnerships. Support will not necessarily happen quickly, and some kinds are suitable only when communities are ready. Interest and take-up is often slower and harder to achieve than envisaged, and expectations and contracting arrangements must be managed accordingly.
There is not a single or simple transferable model for supporting communities in resident-led change. Rather, the Big Local experience highlights the importance of a flexible, responsive and accommodating approach to support, delivered through an evolving (as opposed to an abruptly changing) repertoire of support offers. The approach displayed a growing willingness by Local Trust to test, learn, and adjust delivery as needed.
Reflecting on how support was delivered in Big Local, the five main lessons for future programmes would be to:
