How did Big Local areas respond to the Covid-19 pandemic?

Big Local partnerships faced significant challenges during the Covid-19 pandemic, which occurred mid-way through the programme. Partnerships were confronted with challenging decisions during lockdowns, like whether to pause, move online, or stop work they had planned at the time.

Partnerships did not have to respond to the Covid-19 pandemic. Some supported residents at a small scale with emergency provision or grants, but otherwise largely chose to continue with their existing plans once they were able to. Other partnerships were unable to coordinate a response, because of how their members were impacted. In instances where partnerships were constrained by other commitments or health issues, it was not always possible to respond to the crisis. However, many partnerships did choose to respond, and the flexibility of Big Local funding enabled them to do so. Common responses included:

• moving online
• using community assets
• building networks
• community consultation
• financial support and re-purposing funds.

Often these activities aligned with existing Big Local activity. For example, many partnerships regularly consulted their community to create plans, and others already had access to community assets acquired with Big Local funding. 

Across all Big Local areas, approximately £248,000 was channelled into a Covid-19 response. In light of the pandemic, in March 2020, Local Trust brought forward the final payment of interest generated on the original investment, with each area receiving an additional £50,000. The level of investment varied between areas, as did the types of responses. The most successful, proactive responses to the Covid-19 pandemic were those supported by strong community-led infrastructure. This is commonly defined as networks, community leadership, trust, wider relationships, and access to money (Macmillan, 2020). Generally speaking, those areas with more robust community-led infrastructure already in place were better able to support their communities during the pandemic.

Three key roles emerged in community responses to the Covid-19 pandemic – doing, connecting, and collaborating (Local Trust, 2020). The do-ers identified and responded to basic community needs and were associated with providing emergency provision as part of the immediate response effort. Connectors engaged communities and helped residents feel connected to each other and their area. During the pandemic, much of this connection had to take place online or over the phone, but it was a crucial element of local response efforts. Collaborators built relationships with local stakeholders (including voluntary and community groups, councils, and businesses) to coordinate a response. Big Local partnerships drew on existing networks and built new ones. While there were other roles, and partnership members may have played more than one, they facilitated the diverse ways partnerships responded to the Covid-19 crisis, as detailed below (Local Trust, 2020).

To continue providing community activities, many partnerships moved their work online. Certain activities lent themselves well to video calls, such as ​‘knit and natter’ groups, welfare advice, and youth work (Ellis Paine et al., 2022). Not all Big Local partnerships found the transition to online working easy. Partnerships were supported to adapt, with Local Trust providing free Zoom licenses and training, and running learning clusters to develop partnership members understanding of digital inclusion. Partnership meetings were therefore able to move online. WhatsApp also became a popular tool for many partnerships to stay connected to each other and the wider community.

Community assets played a key role in many pandemic responses in Big Local areas. While it was not their job to do so, partnerships frequently filled gaps in services (due to staff being furloughed or digital exclusion with services moving online), often informally supporting residents that were isolating at home. 

In both Brookside and Whitley Bay Big Local areas, community spaces were used to store and distribute resources for immediate response (like testing kits or food parcels), and as centres to coordinate activities. In other areas, community spaces were used as testing centres. For example, in Brinnington the Big Local partnership let Stockport Council use their hub as a testing centre, in return for covering all their running costs for this period. 

While some partnerships were able to continue using their community assets (like Big Local hubs and other spaces), other partnerships struggled to keep up with running costs due to closure, loss of income generated by venue hire, and increased rent. In some cases, partnerships lost assets due to the challenges created by the pandemic, and others had to abandon or delay asset projects that were already underway.

As many Big Local partnerships had already started building local connections, they were in a strong position to mobilise and strengthen these existing networks to provide pandemic relief. This meant making sure people still felt connected to their community during lockdowns, and that local stakeholders (such as community groups, local authorities, businesses, and residents) could work together to coordinate a response. 

There was considerable variation in the availability of community volunteers across areas. While some partnerships saw an increase in willing volunteers, others found that many residents were struggling to volunteer due to health reasons or limited time. For those areas with an increase in volunteers, partnerships often struggled to maintain these levels once restrictions lifted and people started returning to work. However, many partnerships reported that the connections built during the pandemic lasted, and changed their ways of working for the better. For example, in St Peter’s and the Moors, the Big Local partnership led the community response to the pandemic, accelerating network building, scaling up their food provision programme, and reaching people at a time when many stakeholders could not. The partnership reflected that their reputation and network grew as a result, supporting future delivery.

Local Trust explores networks and networking in Big Local in more detail in another article.

Many Big Local partnerships regularly consulted their communities prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, as consultation was key to developing priorities, planning activities, and gathering feedback. As the majority of members were residents themselves, many partnerships also routinely engaged with residents more informally, such as through conversations at community events or Big Local activities.

When the pandemic began to affect communities in England, many partnerships sought input from their community to understand local needs and tailor their response accordingly. Partnerships mobilised a wide range of resources to gather feedback, including online surveys, newsletters, mailing lists, social media, phone calls, and online meetings. Much of this had to take place remotely; for example, in one coastal town the partnership began weekly online meetings with partner organisations to discuss community needs and quickly allocate funding to meet any emerging gaps (Ellis Paine et al., 2022). Other partnerships connected with residents in a socially distanced way, such as through doorstep conversations and outdoor community consultation events, to better understand their needs (Wilson et al., 2020a). Close connections with residents helped partnerships understand what was needed, enabling them to flag households needing support accessing prescriptions or groceries, or experiencing loneliness and social isolation.

Some Big Local partnerships offered emergency loans and grants during the pandemic to support residents and local groups facing financial challenges. Some were offered on an individual basis, for example Leecliffe and SO18 Big Local partnerships created hardship and emergency funds to help residents cover the costs of food, prescriptions, and small household items. Many partnerships also introduced or expanded grants programmes to support local groups to continue running activities. 

The flexible funding of Big Local meant some partnerships had resources to respond to the Covid-19 pandemic. However, it is important to remember that this funding could not solve the considerable challenges of the pandemic, and the amount of money available to re-purpose varied. Some partnerships had committed significant amounts of their funds to other long-term projects or opted to spend on different priorities; and, in some areas, the emerging cost of living crisis made it difficult to run community hubs. 

Local Trust explores how Big Local partnerships responded to the rising cost of living in another article.

To understand how partnerships supported their communities during the Covid-19 pandemic, this section looks at four broad phases and types of response.

Statutory services faced complex processes and staff disruptions, due to furlough and other official restrictions. In the early stages of the pandemic, informal support was crucial and allowed partnerships to fill gaps as statutory services struggled to respond quickly (or at all).

Immediate responses focused on essential needs such as food, medication, and accommodation. A lot of this was achieved through neighbour-to-neighbour support, and some partnerships saw an influx of local volunteers during this time. Non-emergency provision was also delivered in this phase, including activity or wellness packs, support with online tools, or phone services to tackle loneliness and social isolation.

While many Big Local activities came to a stop because of lockdowns and social distancing, not all pre-pandemic support was halted. Many partnerships were able to move existing activities online and adapt or expand support to align with government restrictions and changing community needs. Many partnerships also extended or adapted existing grants schemes to support the community recovering from the pandemic and its impacts, and related issues such as food availability and digital inclusion. 

A key example of extending services was the progressive changes in food-based activity. Responses like food banks and community fridges evolved to reflect community need as the pandemic progressed, expanding to include personal shopping support, ​‘bring and share’ food tables, and sharing surplus allotment produce (Wilson et al., 2020a).

In North London, the Elthorne Pride Big Local partnership had organised an annual event to deliver winter hampers (containing food, toys, and duvets) to residents for four years prior to the outbreak of Covid-19. Seeing the increased need in the community, they made more hampers available to residents on benefits or low wages. In Palfrey, the Big Local partnership was already improving local health and wellbeing through annual events connecting residents with local health services. This support expanded during the pandemic, drawing on existing connections with pharmacies and the local authority to publish a newsletter signposting residents to vaccination and testing services.

After immediately mobilising and expanding what they already had, many Big Local partnerships began to consider new activities to address emerging needs created by the pandemic. As well as creating new challenges, the pandemic highlighted existing inequalities in communities. 

For example, St Matthew’s Big Local established themselves by taking a flexible and pragmatic approach to the pandemic, shifting plans to meet local need. They worked to keep the community hub open during lockdowns, support local businesses with personal protective equipment, and run an extensive food table and fridge programme. In North Brixton, the Big Local partnership set up an online art project to bring art packs to households isolating due to health reasons. 

These types of projects responded to people feeling lonely or missing out on the creative stimulation that typical community work might have provided outside of the pandemic. Similar work was undertaken in SO18, where residents created mosaics for public display, and set up WhatsApp groups to chat and share photographs of their projects with each other. Many residents felt this was a lifeline for them during lockdown and the project also left an artistic legacy in the area.

As restrictions eased, some partnerships began planning systematically to respond to future challenges. They began to focus on longer-term, complex needs that were highlighted or worsened by the Covid-19 pandemic, such as unemployment, poverty, mental health, and inequality. For example, supporting mental health by improving access to outdoor spaces. Some partnerships shifted their priorities as a result, while others returned to the projects and ambitions highlighted before the pandemic.

Many partnerships showed a shift into long-term relationship building. For example, in Whitley Bay a pandemic food hub (delivered alongside the local authority and a mosque) ultimately developed into other forms of ongoing support in response to long-term needs. Ongoing support included digital skills development and a ​‘social supermarket’ offering food and household items at a discounted rate. Other food-related projects developed into long-term projects addressing wider concerns, such as Somers Town’s immediate provision of food, which evolved into a broader signposting service.

Other partnerships returned to the priorities they sought to tackle pre-pandemic – not least because the pandemic highlighted these inequalities and underlined the importance of a co-ordinated long-term response. Similarly, the partnerships that responded to the pandemic developed an increased sense of community resourcefulness, which meant that these areas could approach challenges with new confidence in their capacity to work together and respond to community need.

However, it is important to remember the limitations of community-level capacity to solve post-pandemic challenges. It is not their responsibility alone to tackle them – they still operate within local and national systems that also need to adapt and improve.

There was a variety of approaches and outcomes during the time of the Covid-19 pandemic. Generalisations are difficult, because Big Local partnerships reacted in different ways and it was not their responsibility to fix problems caused by the pandemic. 

The Covid-19 pandemic was destabilising for many Big Local areas, and reshaped how funding was used, as many partnerships shifted the focus of their work. While the flexibility of Big Local funding meant that partnerships could respond to crisis, it also meant that many valued projects and ideas were abandoned. 

However, in the majority of cases where there was a response, partnerships developed new ways of working, both leaning on and strengthening community-led infrastructure to meet the challenges of the pandemic. The diverse range of approaches at each stage of pandemic response highlighted long-term community needs, developed knowledge, resulted in new networks, and established new ways of working. 

Despite challenges to Big Local partnerships, instances of crisis had the potential to unify communities towards a common purpose by creating a shared social identity, built on the sense of being in it together (Macmillan, 2020). This often helped build community trust in Big Local and offered opportunities for partnerships to build relationships, establish a reputation for quality community work, and respond quicker and more efficiently to future challenges (Pollard et al., 2021).