How did Big Local build the skills and confidence of residents?

Many of the stories of Big Local areas are stories of capacity building – 143 out of 150 areas were able to maintain a resident-led partnership. In other words, Big Local partnerships overcoming challenges, delivering their plans, embedding themselves in their communities, and building strong networks, is evidence of capacity being built. 

Capacity building refers to activities and processes that strengthen the structures, systems, knowledge, skills, and confidence of people and community groups (Wilson et al., 2023). This was a central theme of the programme outcomes, hypothesis, and design, supporting the resident-led premise of Big Local – by developing people’s skills, knowledge, and networks they were better equipped to enact lasting change in their communities. 

Local Trust had a central role to play – their flexible, tailored, and responsive support offer was designed not to do things for residents, but to build capacity so residents could do things themselves. The process of capacity building provided foundations for long-term success of community-led development, empowering residents to take control of decisions that impact their lives. As most Big Local areas were able to form and maintain a partnership, and make decisions on behalf of their communities, Local Trust considered this capacity building largely successful, though with plenty of learning.

In the early stages of the programme, residents from the first areas to receive their funding set up steering groups. Big Local reps helped bring people together to build an understanding of Big Local, discuss potential priorities for their area, and plan how to get people involved and create a buzz around the programme. Many residents gained insights into community development work during this time, stationing themselves at school gates, GP waiting rooms, libraries, and places of worship, to engage with local people. 

These steering groups were later formalised as partnerships. While Local Trust had limited requirements about who could join a partnership, there needed to be at least eight members, with residents holding the majority. Some areas decided to impose their own requirements (most commonly to restrict local authority representation), however broadly speaking any resident could join a Big Local partnership. This widened the pool of volunteers, and the 2024 partnership members survey showed that around 25 per cent of members had never volunteered or engaged in community activity before Big Local, creating a need for skills development. With that in mind, Local Trust’s role was to provide a support offer that was not so prescriptive that it was at odds with the resident-led ethos of the programme, but comprehensive enough to help ensure effective delivery (IVAR, 2013). 

Once a partnership was established, they had to choose a Locally Trusted Organisation (LTO), develop their plans, and decide how to deliver them. Creating a plan was time-intensive, requiring partnership members to engage with residents, identify local priorities, and develop a strategy to tackle them. Through this process, members could develop their skills in community engagement, conducting and evaluating research, hosting events, teamwork, marketing and communications, and planning and strategic thinking. Local Trust helped them do this effectively by publishing and sharing written guidance that set out what needed to be included in plans and how to produce them. Big Local reps and LTOs were also available to offer on-the-ground, responsive support, guiding partnerships through this process. Although they started and progressed at different rates, all 150 Big Local areas successfully produced their first plans and most submitted several more in the following years.

As Big Local partnerships were unincorporated entities, LTOs took on many of the processes involved with good governance. They provided partnerships with a kind of ​‘legal safety net’ (Dobson et al., 2022) by facilitating access to funding, employing or contracting workers, supporting partnerships with asset management and transfer, and conducting due diligence and risk management. Partnerships still had to decide how they structured themselves, made decisions, and ensured accountability to the community, supported by guidance from Local Trust, both written and from the LTOs and reps. 

LTO support provided capacity to partnerships by freeing up volunteers’ time to focus on developing and delivering their plans. Where the relationships with LTOs were strong, partnerships reported that their LTO acted as a mentor. They offered partnerships informal guidance and support to develop ideas, built the skills and confidence of volunteers, explained complex processes and jargon, and provided access to new networks and spaces to meet and deliver activities (Dobson et al., 2022). Big Local reps also acted as ​‘critical friends’ – in the early years they helped guide partnerships through first steps and basic requirements, and continued throughout the programme to provide advice, signposting, and challenge (Local Trust, 2018). Many partnerships reported the value of these relationships in navigating their journey and developing skills, with several areas planning to continue working with their LTO beyond Big Local, through established legacy organisations and networks. 

That said, the extent of capacity building enabled by LTO and Big Local rep support varied between areas. For example, strained relationships could slow delivery and therefore skills development, or a high turnover of LTO staff or partnership members could make it difficult to build and maintain relationships. The efficiency of the LTO’s own governance systems also impacted Big Local delivery and opportunities for partnerships to progress, and both under- and over-involvement from the LTO and rep could hinder capacity building for partnership members. Where governance was done well, it presented partnerships with new opportunities to be involved in local decision-making, build networks, attract volunteers, and access funding opportunities (Dobson et al., 2022).

Local Trust explores how residents came together to make decisions in more detail in another article.

Over time, some partnerships decided to set up their own legal entity, incorporating themselves as both partnership and LTO under an umbrella organisation, or setting up their own LTO separate to the partnership. Throughout this process, support was on-hand from Local Trust, LTOs, Big Local reps, national support partners, and in some cases, experienced partnership members. This ensured volunteers had the necessary information for establishing legal and governance processes, business plans, and scope and remit. By 2018, 38 per cent of Big Local partnerships had set up a new legal entity, increasing the potential for further capacity building in Big Local areas (Local Trust, 2020).

As Big Local progressed, partnerships grew in confidence and capabilities, activities diversified, and projects became larger and more complex. Reflecting partnerships’ changing needs, Local Trust’s support offer also began to diversify.

Partnership members valued opportunities for technical skills support when navigating difficult or unfamiliar processes like asset acquisition and management, fundraising, marketing and communications, and project management (Wilson et al., 2023). By the period of peak delivery (around 2016 to 2022), most areas employed at least one worker, so technical skills support started to include employee management. 

As part of Local Trust’s widening support offer, national partners were brought in to offer more specialist, on-hand guidance to partnerships facing specific challenges and tasks. Local Trust established a Learning and Networking programme to offer a regular calendar of events. These events were hosted alongside national support partners, exploring specific topics across community engagement, grant applications, media support, local authority collaboration, and local and national issues (like the cost of living crisis). Uptake of support was mixed – some areas chose not to use it, whilst others wanted more support from Local Trust, particularly for residents without prior experience in community-led work.

In addition to technical knowledge and skills development, interpersonal and leadership skills were essential for partnerships. In 2019, Local Trust launched the Community Leadership Academy (CLA) to identify established and emerging leaders in Big Local areas and support the development of their strengths and capabilities. The long-term ambition for the academy was to develop a network of community leaders, to improve delivery of community activity, ultimately benefitting wider communities (Local Trust, 2024a). 

The focus of the CLA was to develop personal skills such as confidence, relationship-building, managing boundaries, delegating tasks, chairing meetings, improving self-awareness and empathy, and creating open and inclusive conversations (Terry et al., 2023). This was achieved through one-to-one coaching, group learning workshops, masterclasses, residentials (sets of in-person sessions for participants to network and learn about leadership) (Baker et al., 2024), and informal peer support and networking (Terry et al., 2023). These activities helped build participants’ capacity to drive and improve the everyday running of Big Local, as opposed to more specific and technical skills (like those needed to establish a legacy organisation). The result of this kind of capacity building was long-lasting and wide-reaching, and many participants reported increased confidence to get involved with community organisations and take up positions in local authorities (Baker et al., 2024). 

Local Trust explores how community leadership was supported in more detail in another article.

To avoid burdening residents with admin and reporting, Big Local reporting and evaluation requirements were minimal. However, as many partnerships began to think about their legacy, interest in evaluation and research grew. Recognising that evaluation is a time-consuming, resource-intensive process, Local Trust launched the Measuring Change support package in 2019, which paired 33 Big Local areas with community-led evaluation specialists, over the span of six years. With access to specialist knowledge and skills, partnerships were better able to articulate their impact, think strategically about how that tied in with their legacy, create evaluation frameworks, and evaluate their activities (Fisher, 2021).

The Woolavington and Puriton Villages Together partnership developed an evaluation framework to measure the success of their pilot hub, to help raise additional funds for the hub and its activities to continue beyond Big Local. In Wormley and Turnford, a similar evaluation framework was implemented using Measuring Change support, enabling the area to attract funding to completely renovate their hub. 

Local Trust has explored how Big Local partnerships engaged with evaluation in another article.

Peer support was a mainstay of the Big Local programme. Recognising relationship-building as a key component of capacity building, Local Trust sought to maximise opportunities and spaces for Big Local areas to connect online and in-person. The Learning and Networking programme offered skills support and encouraged networking between areas facing similar challenges. Role-specific networks were introduced, including the chairs network and the network for workers. These networks helped individuals develop skills relevant to their roles, and the online social platform – Workplace – was used by partnership members to seek advice and support from each other. 

In addition to the regular programme of events and networking opportunities, the first Big Local Connects was held in 2018. This became an annual two-day, in-person celebration of the work and achievements of all 150 partnerships, up until the final event in 2023. The opportunity to network was the most frequently mentioned feature of Big Local Connects amongst attendees (Local Trust, 2019). The events provided space to build relationships, find sources of inspiration, and develop new ways of working. Attendees could also attend drop-in sessions and workshops covering a wide range of capacity building topics, from doing meetings differently to learning from failure. Alongside celebrating areas’ achievements, these events created space to form regional and national support networks, and share learning, practical support, and inspiration. 

The creation of networks is evidence of the capacity built within areas, and there were numerous examples of partnerships connecting with and visiting other Big Local areas. Creative Civic Change (an experimental funding programme) brought together two Big Local areas in Birmingham, Welsh House Farm and Birchfield, who secured a £200,000 bid to support arts initiatives across both communities. Relationships such as this provided longstanding support systems, sources of inspiration, and the opportunity to strengthen delivery by pooling resources and skills.

Towards the ​‘spending out’ phase (around 2021 to 2026), the skills, knowledge, and networks built over the course of the programme supported 143 areas to reach the end of the programme with a resident-led partnership still in place. 

Local Trust will discuss the alternative approaches in the remaining seven areas in an upcoming article.

With the end of Big Local on the horizon, new challenges and considerations arose for partnerships. Areas’ aims and ambitions varied during this time, and Local Trust support became more targeted to ensure that partnerships had the capacity to spend their £1m and deliver their plans (Wilson et al., 2023). 

Close-out plans typically followed one of three pathways, and support from Local Trust was designed to help partnerships decide which pathway was right for them. Partnerships would: 

1. continue to deliver work through a dedicated legacy organisation or group
2. preserve the assets and projects that had been delivered during Big Local
3. finish well and bring a sense of closure for themselves and other volunteers.

The Make it Happen support package matched Big Local partnerships with specialists (the cost of which was covered by Local Trust). This helped them to overcome resource and time challenges associated with monitoring and evaluating, communications, establishing and running legal bodies, managing workers and navigating redundancies, and raising additional funds (Wilson et al., 2023). The support provided partnerships with the information and skills to follow their chosen pathway, while ensuring they met legal requirements and could support volunteers, workers, and the wider community. 

However, the 150 Big Local areas progressed at different rates, and Make it Happen did not necessarily align with all those timelines. In the 2024 partnership members survey, some residents expressed that the timing of support offered by Local Trust (like Make it Happen) would have been more effective if offered at an earlier stage.

There were few reporting requirements for Big Local areas. This relatively light-touch approach ensured that power and decision-making remained in communities. However, it also meant that data regarding impact and capacity building was not systematically gathered. Evidence of capacity building enabling resident-led change shows itself through the stories from Big Local areas of residents pulling together to engage their community, deliver projects, and build a legacy of community action. Of the 150 areas that received funding, 143 maintained a resident-led partnership, despite many challenges along the way. This speaks to the tenacity, skills, and knowledge developed within Big Local partnerships. 

The support provided by Local Trust at a programme level was one mechanism for capacity building, while the nature of the programme enabled residents to take the lead in developing their own capacity as well. 

Local Trust explores how residents developed their own abilities throughout Big Local in an accompanying article.