How did Local Trust approach policy influencing in relation to Big Local?

The Big Local programme showed that communities, with the power and resources to make decisions on what is best for their areas, can create lasting change. This highlighted the value of hyper-local, community-led change in transforming a neighbourhood. It also showed how a lack of social infrastructure (places to meet, connectivity, and community engagement) plays a fundamental role in increasing disadvantage. In Big Local areas with strong existing social infrastructure, partnerships progressed through the early stages of the programme quicker than those in areas with less established social infrastructure. 

Local Trust created a policy team in 2018 to share learning from the Big Local programme and use it to inform the policy and practice of government, local authorities, trusts and foundations, and those with a wider interest. Over time, this contributed to an increase in political support for putting power, resources, and decision-making into the hands of communities, alongside a greater recognition of the role of community leadership in neighbourhood regeneration.

Local Trust’s experience of delivering the Big Local programme highlighted that a lack of social infrastructure plays a fundamental role in increasing disadvantage. In Big Local areas with strong existing social infrastructure, partnerships progressed through the early stages of the programme quicker than those in areas with less established social infrastructure.

Local Trust wanted to establish whether this trend applied across the country. In 2018, Oxford Consultants for Social Inclusion (OCSI) was commissioned to develop new data analysis to explore the difference that social infrastructure made to outcomes in deprived communities.

The resulting Community Needs Index (CNI) measures the local social and cultural factors that can impact people’s life chances. This is tracked across three domains: civic assets, connectivity, and community engagement. It is a powerful tool for analysing and understanding spatial inequalities at the neighbourhood level and enabling comparisons between areas and inequalities.

Local Trust and OCSI explored the Community Needs Index in a report.

A group of neighbourhoods in England was identified as facing the double disadvantage of high levels of deprivation and weak social infrastructure (OCSI, 2019). This was the first quantitative definition of what constitutes a ​‘left behind’ area – those in the top 10 per cent most deprived on both the Community Needs Index and the Index of Multiple Deprivation. Residents in these neighbourhoods experience greater challenges across various life outcomes, including poverty, educational attainment, and population health. Being ​‘left behind’ was not about a lack of people with skills and commitment or a rich heritage. It was about investment, services, and facilities, which help connect people and provide opportunities for residents to develop and prosper. The terms ​‘left behind’ and ​‘doubly disadvantaged’ were then used interchangeably in Local Trust’s policy outputs and publications.

To build on this work, Local Trust was the secretariat to the All-Party Parliamentary Group (an informal cross-party groups of MPs and Peers focused on a specific subject or issue) for ​‘left behind’ neighbourhoods, which was active between June 2020 and March 2024. The All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) included MPs and Peers from across the political spectrum, united in their aim to develop practical policy solutions to improve social and economic outcomes for residents of these neighbourhoods. The APPG provided a platform for Big Local residents, volunteers, and workers to share their experiences directly with policy- and decision-makers, nationally and locally. More than twenty representatives from Big Local and Creative Civic Change areas joined evidence hearings and shared their stories.

Alongside the evidence sessions and an inquiry into the then government’s levelling up agenda, one of the APPG’s most important contributions was advocating within parliament for a Community Wealth Fund to benefit from the expanded Dormant Assets Scheme.

Local Trust founded the cross sectoral Community Wealth Alliance (CWFA) in 2019 to advocate for establishing a Community Wealth Fund. The campaign aimed to secure funding for ​‘doubly disadvantaged’ neighbourhoods from the expanded Dormant Assets Scheme (a government scheme that enables unclaimed financial products to be used for social and environmental initiatives).

The Community Wealth Fund Alliance campaigned for long-term, hyper-local funding to invest in community-led decision making; build community confidence and capacity; and support the development of services and facilities that reflect residents’ needs and aspirations.

The campaign successfully secured dormant assets (financial assets where the owner cannot be found) for the Community Wealth Fund. The National Lottery Community Fund, as the Dormant Assets Scheme’s named distributor, is responsible for delivery of the Community Wealth Fund on behalf of government.

Local Trust has explored the role of the APPG for ​‘left behind’ neighbourhoods in a report.

The Big Local programme’s central idea was that communities, with the power and resources to make decisions on what is best for their areas, can create lasting change in their neighbourhoods. Local Trust’s policy team put forward the case for improving neighbourhood-level social infrastructure to support the development of stronger, thriving communities. 

This was communicated through Local Trust’s policy outputs, which outlined evidence from within and outside the Big Local programme, showcasing the value of social capital and infrastructure.

Policy spotlight 1: How social infrastructure improves outcomes, summarised the evidence that social infrastructure is the bedrock for transforming neighbourhoods and contributes directly to local economic growth and development, as well as civic pride.

Policy spotlight 3: How investing in social capital builds cohesive communities, examined the vital connection between social capital and community cohesion, and highlighted how Big Local areas brought their communities together through spaces, places, and activities.

The double dividend: the social and economic benefits of community infrastructure and its potential to level up ​‘left behind’ neighbourhoods, drew on a cost-benefit analysis of investment in community-led social infrastructure by Frontier Economics, highlighting the potential of social infrastructure to deliver positive economic and social change.

A key focus of Local Trust’s advocacy was showing policymakers the value of shifting power to communities, below the level of the local authority, to the hyper-local, neighbourhood level. In practical terms, this involved proposals around handing decision-making powers and resources directly to residents, and building local confidence and capacity as a foundation for developing new community-led neighbourhood councils or forums.

Local Trust policy papers, Trusting local people: putting real power in the hands of communities and Rebalancing the power: Five principles for a successful relationship between councils and communities, outline how support for community leadership should target residents in the most deprived areas, allowing them to take full advantage of the opportunities available.

Building strong local economies was an area of interest to policymakers throughout the Big Local programme. The publications Building community wealth in neighbourhoods and Big local and community economic development illustrate how giving residents decision-making responsibility can build local wealth and stimulate local economies. The reports reflect on what helped and hindered resident-led partnerships undertaking this work, providing lessons for future activity.

Partnerships in Big Local areas also built community wealth by bringing land and other assets into community control. The report, Activate! Land in the hand of communities, lays out how funders and policy makers could do more to help others follow in their footsteps.

The Local Trust policy team brought together learning from Big Local to showcase the value of hyper-local, community-led change. This made the case for targeted investment in neighbourhoods, especially those that had historically missed out on funding. Using this evidence, Local Trust proposed practical policy recommendations for government and policymakers to begin the next generation of investment in neighbourhood-led renewal. Policy spotlight 2: Why the next government should focus on neighbourhoods explored why neighbourhoods are the most impactful geography for community-led regeneration, and how hyper-local interventions can help tackle disparities across the country (Local Trust, 2024).

Towards the end of Big Local, Local Trust commissioned Kinship Works to bring together the evidence and help tell the story of the programme. The final report, Civic Rewilding: Applying the lessons from Big Local, explored how to rebuild civic capacity and social capital, with practical guidance on ​‘civic rewilding’ – protecting and restoring habitats for community life (like youth clubs or libraries). The paper’s analogy with rewilding reflects the organic nature of community-led development, and the importance of providing spaces and habitats for community to grow.

Big Local funding created space, allowing communities to follow instincts that were different from the bureaucratic instincts of public institutions (Kinship Works, 2026). It also tapped into community knowledge of local needs and assets. Time and again, the work that happened locally was holistic, relational, resourceful, positive, and preventative (Kinship Works, 2026).