How inclusive was Big Local?

The 150 Big Local areas were selected to address relative disadvantage. They had historically missed out on funding from the National Lottery and generally had high levels of deprivation compared to the rest of England – for example in relation to employment, health, and community infrastructure. The Big Local programme was designed to put residents in charge of how funding would be spent. This presented some challenges around expectations for equality, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) – those supporting residents needed to balance promoting inclusive practice and recognition of local inequalities, with ensuring residents made decisions on their own terms. 

Over the course of a 15-year programme local populations change, as does our cultural understanding of EDI. For example, the social model of disability was formalised in the 1990s and embedded into human rights in the 2000s. Since then, a wealth of thinking and learning has taken place around what it means to include or collaborate with disabled people. Such developments occurred alongside expanding views of what constitutes being disabled, including a significant shift in understanding and focus on neurodivergence and mental health. The LGBTQ+ movement has experienced similar levels of change, and our cultural understanding of race – and racism – has also shifted significantly, with the growth of the Black Lives Matter movement throughout the lifetime of Big Local. During Big Local, support for populist commentary and policies also grew, with intolerance for EDI principles exemplified by the phrase ​‘anti-woke’.

Big Local was established in areas experiencing relative deprivation, which could generally be described as predominantly working class. Big Local was designed to address this inequality by enabling residents to lead on decision-making about how to use Big Local funding to benefit their community. Big Local was not an exercise in sharing power, but in devolving power as much as possible. 

Local Trust explores the values of the Big Local programme in another article.

This article uses the following definitions from Local Trust’s EDI strategy:

• Equality – striving for equality means challenging discrimination and inequality, recognising that people may need different resources to reach equal outcomes.
• Diversity – striving for recognition of diversity means embracing it; welcoming the ways we are different and promoting a wide range of people and perspectives.
• Inclusion – striving for inclusion means valuing people’s unique ideas and lived experiences and ensuring all can fully participate and have their voice heard.

Local Trust communicated to residents that any resident had a right to participate as a member of the partnership, and no-one was there to represent the whole – or a particular part – of the community. They were there to act on behalf of the wider community. As partnerships were not a legal entity, anyone from the area could join. This encouraged residents beyond ​‘the usual suspects’ to come forward – a quarter of partnership members had not previously been involved in community or voluntary work. 

While partnerships were not required to be representative of the local populations, it is useful to know the extent to which they reflected their communities. 

Snapshot data for the 150 Big Local areas, from towards the end of peak delivery, is used to explore representation in partnerships, using internal partnership reviews (Local Trust, 2021), partnership member surveys (Local Trust, 2022), and census data via Local Insight (ONS, 2022). Of note, while there were changes in population demographics throughout the lifetime of Big Local across many areas, Local Trust staff reflected that the transience of residents in some areas of London impacted representation, decision-making, and overall delivery.

Apart from four Big Local areas with majority Asian populations and seven with majority Black populations, most (139) Big Local areas had majority White populations. Of the 150 areas, 43 had over-representation of an ethnic group by 25 per cent or more compared to local demographic data. Generally, the over-represented ethnic identity was the majority ethnic group in the local population – 33 (of 43) had an over-representation of White partnership members in majority White populations. 

Partnerships in areas with majority Black populations were often reflective of the community. Partnerships in areas with majority Asian populations were less reflective, usually with over-representation of White residents. Broader volunteering trends beyond Big Local reflect a fairly even spread of volunteering across ethnic backgrounds, though with Asian people less likely to regularly, formally volunteer than those identifying as White, Black, or from a mixed background (NCVO, 2023).

Partnerships tended to be made up of relatively older residents. Across all areas, 27 per cent of partnership members were aged 65 and over, compared with 14 per cent in the combined Big Local populations. Across all areas, 45 per cent of partnership members were aged 45 to 64, 25 per cent were aged 25 to 44, and just 3 per cent were aged under 24. 

This aligned with wider volunteering trends, that people aged 65 and over are the most likely age group to volunteer (NCVO, 2023). Fourteen partnerships (of 150) had 60 per cent or more members aged 65 and over, with eight of those over 70 per cent, and one made up entirely of members aged 65 and over.

Across all areas, 40 per cent of partnership members had a degree, compared with 24 per cent in the combined Big Local populations. This aligned with broader trends, with people in managerial, administrative, and professional roles generally volunteering more than those in other socioeconomic groups (DCMS, 2024). Among the rest of partnership members’ highest qualification levels, 15 per cent had GCSE’s (or equivalent), 9 per cent had A‑levels (or equivalent), 23 per cent had a college or University credit or qualification other than a full degree, and 9 per cent had vocational training qualifications. Of 150 partnerships, 43 had 60 per cent or more members with degree-level education, with 14 partnerships entirely made up of members with degrees. However, 31 partnerships had no members with a degree.

Compared with a near 50–50 split in male and female residents across Big Local populations, most partnership members were women, with 63 per cent identifying as women and 37 per cent as men across the whole programme. This aligned with wider volunteering trends that women are more likely to volunteer than men (NCVO, 2023).

Local Trust reflected on the importance of having diverse views and perspectives represented in partnerships. Without the involvement of, for example young people, in decision-making, it was others that made decisions on their behalf based on their own assumptions. Attention to inclusive practice, however, is just as important as representation. Group dynamics, physical settings, and ways of working can present significant barriers to meaningful participation, despite specific demographics or life experiences being represented in meetings or through consultation. 

With a small number of residents acting on behalf of the wider community, lack of diversity or power imbalances within partnerships had significant influence on decision-making. For example, it was often the partnership chair and the Big Local worker who developed agendas, and dominant individuals – while appreciated for their ability to get things done – could have a silencing effect on others (Lyon et al., 2021). 

While partnerships often made significant efforts to include each member, there were sometimes unintentional barriers to participation in meetings – notably in relation to ethnicity, gender, disability, age, or professional experience (Lyon et al., 2021). In this sense, some Big Local partnerships were prone to replicating existing power structures – either in terms of traditional power dynamics around ethnicity and gender, or in terms of traditional processes for decision-making such as those used in councils. This was particularly the case when partnership members had professional experience working in council and community development settings (Afridi et al., 2021). 

While some partnerships reflected on how inclusive their practices were throughout the programme, and created informal and flexible decision-making environments, others reflected a more middle-class ​‘office’ culture, with formal decision-making spaces. In these instances of formal decision-making structures, though members cared deeply about improving the lives of others, those with the time, skills, and confidence to engage in the process could (mostly inadvertently) exclude others. This was sometimes as simple as rejecting requests for online meetings from members balancing childcare and work, through to micro-aggressions and bias leading to more value being placed on certain voices.

There were different ways for the wider community to get involved in Big Local, with significant investment made by many partnerships to provide small grants to resident-led initiatives and volunteering opportunities. Partnerships also developed Big Local priorities and plans based on wider community engagement.

Local Trust has explored volunteering in Big Local in another article and will explore small grants in another upcoming article. 

Approaches to prioritising how to use their funds varied significantly across partnerships and over time. Some partnerships valued local statistics, accessed through stakeholders (like local authorities or healthcare providers) or Local Insight (a tool developed by Local Trust and Oxford Consultants for Social Inclusion – with data specific to Big Local area boundaries). Others placed more value on the voices of those in their community and their own experiences. Local Trust staff reflected that, particularly in the early years, personal experience and community feedback was often valued more than local statistics – partnerships sometimes told Local Trust that the data provided simply did not align with their experiences. 

All partnerships dedicated resources to engaging the wider community in shaping plans, though the amount of time invested and approach to this varied greatly across the areas. Activities ranged from traditional methods like surveys, workshops, and (online or face-to-face) forums, to visioning events, visiting established community groups or settings (like schools or religious spaces), and informal interactions around the area or at other events (like festivals or coffee mornings). A few partnerships embedded community researchers into their work, while others held participatory decision-making events or delegated some decisions to sub-groups that included resident volunteers beyond the partnership. A base in the community often served as a drop-in for residents to access support while also informing the partnership of community need. This was sometimes supplemented with outreach – such as door-knocking – and activities targeted at underrepresented groups (often to include the views of young people). Big Local workers sometimes provided the additional capacity and skills needed to engage the wider community in shaping Big Local plans. 

While partnerships sought to engage a wide range of residents through engagement and consultation activities, the challenges facing the most marginalised residents in their communities may not have been picked up for inclusion in Big Local plans. Interpretation of local data or community feedback also often relied on partnership members, who weren’t always confident they understood the needs of different communities and people with different experiences to their own (Afridi et al., 2021). 

Systematic data about wider community engagement (such as how many people were engaged and how often) was not collected. However, partnership members in 15 Big Local areas (participating in Our Bigger Story) reflected on the importance of outreach as a tool to include the wider community, particularly knocking on doors rather than relying on who turned up at a meeting or community hub. Local Trust staff felt that having a variety of events to engage residents in decision-making and priority-setting, and of targeted projects to reach specific parts of the community, were also valuable.

Local Trust has explored how Big Local enabled residents to lead decision-making in another article.

Learn more about the Our Bigger Story evaluation by visiting the website.

In the early years of the Big Local programme, Local Trust was finding its feet as a new organisation with a small number of central staff. Also – much like residents – they were figuring out what it meant to devolve power to communities and support them to deliver a resident-led programme. 

To qualify for drawing down funds, partnerships were expected to ensure the inclusion of the wider community. For Local Trust to stay informed of Big Local activities and enable the release of funding, partnerships regularly submitted Big Local plans and reviews. These were accompanied by rep reports, spending reports from the Locally Trusted Organisation (LTO), and more informal communication. 

Local Trust drew on local demographic data to establish what including the wider community meant in areas, exercising judgment to assess how well this had been met. Where improvement was needed, Local Trust responses varied. These included requiring better representation of specific communities in consultation or on the partnership before releasing funds, or introducing an independent partnership chair or co-chair to enable more balanced participation in meetings. Reps played a key role in encouraging partnerships to reflect on how inclusive their practices were throughout Big Local, particularly in the early years when Local Trust had relatively light-touch engagement with partnerships’ day-to-day activities.

Local Trust has explored support provided by Big Local reps in another article.

Residents were required to form an inclusive and accountable local partnership to guide the direction of Big Local and involve a range of residents. The definitions and requirements relating to the terms ​‘inclusive’ and ​‘range of residents’ were not explicitly defined, with differing interpretations across Local Trust. Though, defining these terms in a universal way for 150 areas was not feasible. Those supporting partnerships – particularly reps – were encouraged to ask questions about whose voices had, and had not, been heard as decisions were made. Confidence and credibility in raising issues and facilitating potentially challenging conversations varied among support providers.

As Big Local became more established and learning emerged from the early years of resident-led work, equality and inclusion (both locally and in programme management) became higher profile in Local Trust. This was also partly in response to broader debates and shifts in public discourse.

Over time it became apparent to Local Trust that, without clearer guiderails (and sometimes proactive interventions) the Big Local model could replicate wider inequalities. In 2020, in response to increasing requests from Big Local partnerships, Local Trust established guiding principles for equality and inclusion. They explicitly encouraged partnerships and support providers to reflect and improve on how well they adhered to these principles. 

Local Trust were conscious of the nuance between the 150 areas – one area might have already had a neighbourhood planning group, where another might have two estates in active and long-standing conflict. The principles – valuing diversity, promoting participation, and being inclusive – were therefore provided to outline essential expectations, and to act as guidance for improving. The guidance encouraged partnership members to make decisions by drawing on a range of voices, ensuring a range of people had opportunities to shape Big Local in their area, and to do so by creating an environment and culture where everyone felt welcome. 

Local Trust did, on occasion, withhold funds until requirements were met and there were improvements in representation and inclusion, though there was not a universal expectation or reporting requirement. When putting this guidance into practice, Local Trust was conscious that, in the context of a resident-led programme, careful judgment was needed about what to suggest, when, and how. Inevitably, there was not always agreement.

Towards the end of the programme, Local Trust were often working with Big Local partnerships looking to continue their work through creating a new organisation. This meant looking at other funder requirements, including their expectations around equality. 

As Big Local offered the time and flexibility for residents to come to their own understandings and approaches to embedding good practice, where they came to by the end of the programme varied greatly. This meant that Big Local partnerships often lacked evidence and skills that they could have gained if they had come to understand its significance – through the lens of funder expectations, or otherwise – earlier in the programme. However, looking to the future and the requirements of other funders offered renewed ground to embed this work and reflect more widely on learning from the Big Local programme.

Much of the day-to-day support provided to partnerships was through Big Local reps, a critical friend and crucial link between Local Trust and residents. Identifying needs and supporting with action planning generally relied on those in this role. For example, identifying gaps and understanding the nuances of an area that quantitative data could not capture, such as different communities within a broad demographic group (like by places within Africa or India, or by different churches). Much like partnerships, the ability of reps (and others supporting partnerships) to identify barriers to inclusion, and their confidence in raising and facilitating discussion around those issues, varied significantly (Afridi et al., 2021). Local Trust staff and the pool of reps working with partnerships were also largely White and relatively affluent. They did not reflect the diversity and life experiences of many residents in Big Local areas in terms of economic status, ethnicity, and culture. This influenced their confidence engaging partnership members in discussion around issues relating to equality and inclusion. 

Local Trust has explored the roles of Big Local reps and workers in other articles.

Behaviours – such as micro-aggressions and subtle expressions of power and bias – can be hard to identify, and harder yet to evidence. Distance between central staff and those operating on the ground (like reps) also made monitoring particularly tricky. While complaints were uncommon and very few related to equality and inclusion, Local Trust navigated a challenging space when partnership members raised complaints, particularly when members had limited appetite to engage in mediation. While concerted efforts to keep everyone involved and work through conflict sometimes paid off, in other instances a few people unwilling to negotiate exhausted the rest of the partnership and halted delivery. 

Local Trust has explored conflict in the Big Local programme, and how conflict was addressed, in other articles.

Local Trust came to realise there was a need for more specialist support. Expert partners were brought in to provide this support to Big Local partnerships and the staff working with them. This included providing training and tailored coaching, and specialist support for partnerships needing or wanting to tackle specific issues, such as racism.

A specialist provider discusses one of these interventions in an action-learning report.

Towards the end of the programme, Local Trust refined the role of the rep and expanded the in-house team to include area co-ordinators, who developed their own relationships with partnerships. This enabled Local Trust to better understand the needs of partnerships and co-ordinate tailored support.

Raising issues of inequality, both within a partnership and beyond, could be challenging and highly varied depending on the individuals involved (Afridi et al., 2021). For example, while some partnerships readily engaged in issues of ethnicity-related identity and inclusion (particularly in London where the local populations were ethnically diverse), many Big Local areas were predominantly White. In majority White areas, a focus on inclusion of different ethnicities seemed less pressing than addressing poverty and other disadvantages within the community. For some residents, there was little interest in addressing equality in terms of ethnicity and – where relevant – racism, while others expressed interest in actively countering far-right politics in historically White communities experiencing population changes (Afridi et al., 2021). Over the course of Big Local, some areas underwent significant population changes — for example, 25 areas experienced a 10 per cent or more reduction in the White majority population, with variation in the populations that increased across Black, Asian, and other ethnicities (ONS, 2012; 2022).

How partnerships responded to population changes in their area varied significantly, with some prioritising outreach and support for new residents, and others not. Discussion among residents in 15 Big Local areas (participating in Our Bigger Story) demonstrated variation in self-reflective practice and views on the significance of different characteristics across local populations. Some residents also lacked confidence in how to approach and raise equalities questions, noting fears around using the right language and a tendency to use stereotypes. 

While Local Trust encouraged those supporting partnerships to make progress around inclusion, there was a trade-off between prescribing what action needed to be taken to draw down funds, and remaining resident-led. For example, Local Trust staff reflected that support could be brought in to work through challenges around ethnicity if everyone was willing to face the issue head on. But, for less willing partnership members, judgment or accusation (perceived or otherwise) could worsen conflict and decrease engagement. Where there was a lack of shared understanding and willingness to address challenges, support was more effective when focused on relating positively to conflict (like finding common ground, seeking learning, or focusing on strengths) and creating more inclusive spaces where everyone could contribute (at least in the short-term). Decisions were ultimately taken by Local Trust staff on a case-by-case basis.

Big Local was an experiment in transferring power to residents in historically underfunded areas experiencing relative disadvantage. Who, specifically, claimed that power, and what happened in each area, depended on who came forward to work on behalf of their communities, the decisions taken by Local Trust about support, and the individuals who provided it. Senior leaders in Local Trust strove to separate views from behaviours; it was not a goal of the Big Local programme to change people’s beliefs, but it did require partnerships to improve their practices over time. Local Trust strove to ensure partnerships were broadly reflective of their communities and addressed power dynamics in decision-making while upholding the resident-led ethos of Big Local, using a wide range of approaches according to the circumstances and people involved. There were wider systemic and historical issues at play, in England and beyond, that this programme did not seek to address but could be considered differently in future community-led work. 

Local Trust explores how Big Local interacted with systemic issues in an upcoming article.

Senior staff reflected on a delicate balance between providing support that was light-touch enough for residents to shape the programme but also challenging enough, for example on creating an inclusive partnership. Some felt if a more structured and top-down approach had been introduced from the beginning, this would have negatively impacted residents’ ability to get involved. For some residents, more expectations upfront may have been manageable, thereby making the delivery of Big Local in their area more inclusive and setting them up better for future funding applications. However, expectations around comprehension, activities, reporting, and self-reflection on equality and inclusion, alongside other upfront demands of the programme (such as engaging other residents, collective decision-making, hiring contractors, working with stakeholders, and delivering projects) may have been too much and off-putting for other residents, while also feeling more prescriptive. For these reasons, Local Trust leant more towards going at the pace of, and being led by, the residents who had come forward to deliver Big Local in their communities. 

For some partnerships, Local Trust becoming more insistent around engagement with EDI over time was welcomed, but for others, less so. Some partnerships felt that Local Trust had changed the rules, and expectations should have been better managed. Whatever approach to issues of equality and inclusion is taken, future community-led work would benefit from clear expectations being set up front. 

Local Trust staff also reflected that the non-prescriptive approach of the Big Local model allowed residents to learn slowly and build confidence through delivery. Over time, as their confidence built, they were asked to engage more with improving their practice. For some partnerships, this meant coming to a stronger focus on equality and inclusion on their own terms – through wanting to make the right decisions on behalf of their community and noticing gaps in their abilities to do so. For others, this meant being challenged to do so once they had already developed some of the other skills required to lead Big Local in their area. However, with areas all improving from differing starting points, it is debatable whether all areas did ​‘enough’. As a volunteer-led programme with many competing priorities for their consideration, issues of equality and inclusion were not always prioritised. For some partnerships, just delivering Big Local projects at all was a hard-won, significant, achievement.

Solutions to some problems can create other challenges. For example, being more representative of community demographics may have led to decisions that better reflected the needs of the whole community, but sometimes led to more conflict, slowing down progress. Practices that enabled the inclusion of some people may have excluded others, and wider community engagement in decision-making sometimes led to fewer and less consistent decisions. Though, some Big Local partnerships reflected on their decision-making practices early on, and benefitted from inclusive processes, positive relationships, and clear shared goals throughout the programme. 

It can take significant time for residents to build an understanding of how equality is relevant in their communities, agree on priorities, and work through the practicalities and trade-offs involved in applying broad principles. The Big Local programme offered this time through long-term funding. Those driving community-led work may also need support to develop solutions to the issues they identify (Dallimore et al., 2019), and to reflect on issues that they find harder to see (Afridi et al., 2021; Lyon et al., 2021). Applying principles of equality and inclusion in practice will inevitably compete with – and sometimes complicate – other priorities, particularly the pace needed for project progress or completion. The need for adequate time to work through these complications should be considered in the design stages of overall programmes and local projects.

The learning from Big Local on equality and inclusion point to the importance of considering multiple dimensions of inequality (like class, ethnicity, age, disability, and gender). This applies both to delivering resident-led work to address disadvantage, and in thinking through and being clear on expectations around equality, diversity, and inclusion from the outset of resident-led programmes. 

When power is given to people who have historically had less than those devolving it, the values and life experiences between them will inevitably differ. In a resident-led programme, those being given power over local resources arguably cannot be expected to act in accordance with the values and worldviews of those who have ​‘gifted’ it. While Local Trust aimed to stay true to the ethos of being resident-led above all else, in practice there could be tension between being led by the residents volunteering on behalf of their community in partnerships, and those living in the area more widely. 

If a programme aims to ​‘devolve power’ but sets parameters relating to equality or inclusion, then this is more a ​‘sharing of power’. This sharing of power would then benefit from being negotiated, defined, and communicated from the outset, so that those who come forward know what to expect and can be held accountable to it. Structures for accountability could take many forms, ranging from strict upfront requirements (which may not be achievable) to broad principles with practical application that is improved over time (which may lead to significant variation or confusion about what is enough). The stronger the set requirements, the stronger the reporting requirements and capacity-building support would need to be.

Local Trust has explored in-area evaluation within Big Local in another article.