Helen Goulden OBE, CEO of The Young Foundation, argues that rebuilding trust in politics requires empowering communities through tangible actions. She emphasises the need for investment in social infrastructure and greater community involvement in policymaking. Goulden advocates for a future where local innovation and participation drive inclusive growth and lasting social change.
Helen Goulden OBE
CEO, The Young FoundationIn his first speech as Prime Minister, Keir Starmer spoke of a deep lack of trust in politics that “can only be healed by actions not words”. While some might attribute that lack of trust to some of the actions of the last government, it’s a long-term trend – and it’s deep.
As a ‘think and do’ tank, The Young Foundation understands the importance of action as much as it understands research. Action can shape policy, as much as policy can shape action. Communities don’t tend to wait to be asked before moving on the issues they care about, whether that’s refurbishing a derelict building or helping a neighbour during the pandemic.
Social entrepreneurs don’t tend to wait to be asked to set up new businesses that meet societal challenges. And what comes first; the GP surgery that sets up camp at a monthly local school-run event, or a policy that drives community health approaches? The youth-led school to rekindle a love of learning, or an expansive national education policy agenda? The truth is that local institutions, innovative enterprises, and strong-minded communities are very well versed in thinking creatively and differently to meet people’s wants and needs. They can often be the innovators that inspire and inform different ways to meet policy challenges.
A Plan for Participation and Growth
We recently launched The Young Foundation’s plan for community-powered growth with an understanding of the role and importance of both ‘think’ and ‘do’. We have learned this through our seven decades’ experience in and with communities, working towards our charitable mission to shape a fairer future across the UK. And we have seen, time and again, that transformative ideas can start around kitchen tables, on our high streets, and in businesses, every bit as much as they do in government.
So, when Labour promises change, healing and action, we know we can help.
Laying Some Foundations
The case has now been made so often, by so many researchers, advocates and think tanks that it should not bear repeating: investment in shared places for people and communities to go – such as libraries, community and activity centres, parks and other examples of so-called ‘social infrastructure’ – positively impact education, levels of crime, health, employment and the ability to recover from a disastrous event.
The precipitous loss of those spaces in recent years is a matter of public record, and there is abundant evidence that where there are places to go, and a sense of community connectedness, crime is lower, social fabric stronger, education and employment higher – as well as higher survival rates in times of crisis. The Treasury might not have a budget line for it, but given these many and varied long-term outcomes which flow from investing in stronger communities, it is worth rewriting a few rules at the Treasury to account for the value of it.
If accounting for preventative investment continues to prove a perennial challenge, we should be extending the Community Ownership Fund; leveraging investment in local, social infrastructure through the National Wealth Fund and making it legally simpler for communities to take ownership of ‘unwanted’ assets.
In short, if Labour wants to meet its missions, it might do much by investing in the foundations of a civil society.
Put Communities and Civil Society at the Heart of Policymaking
Missions lie at the heart of this Government’s strategy, focused on clear outcomes for long-term and complex policy areas. There is acknowledgement that this needs to work across all levels of government, and that civil society and the private sector have roles to play too.
Solving such complex, long-term, deeply rooted challenges from the bowels of Whitehall is, I hope, recognised as a fool’s errand – and understanding the ‘vertical’ (from the Treasury to the town hall) actions of a mission-led government as much as the ‘horizontal’ actions (across departments) is fundamental to success. That being true, deeper, broader and sustained opportunities for people to engage in deliberating and debating the issues and policies that affect them becomes fundamental too.
Experiments in participatory forms of democracy, and community involvement in shaping policies, have been growing in prominence in recent years; with fierce advocates of citizens assemblies looking to embed public participation in SW1 policymaking. And there is some merit to this. But a few hundred people speaking to Whitehall is a partial answer, at best.
We need a blueprint for community involvement in regional and local government if we want to genuinely build a more citizen-involving political economy. People want to touch and feel change in the places they live, and will need to see (and if they wish, engage) in more deliberative forms of democratic engagement, which are local to them and resolutely action-oriented. Where the process of creating new knowledge together has both a tangible policy output and clear opportunities to take action.
This last point is critical because governments need to be in the business of enabling the next generation of new ideas and innovations that open our eyes (and the Overton window) to the art of the possible. Innovation often outpaces policy, and innovation needs freedom and flexibility to experiment. This idea is exemplified in the work of Luton’s Fairness Taskforce, a long-term initiative that opens up new spaces for debate, but also opportunities for collective action, with people’s experiences and aspirations right at the centre.
Our many complex, long-term challenges demand multi-sector action. This is no truer than when approaching our necessary transition to a green economy. The Young Foundation has identified every neighbourhoods’ readiness to transition to net zero. And we know that people are more likely to take positive environmental action when they see the benefits to their own locality.
A national public participation strategy for this transition is therefore long overdue – with opportunities to mobilise huge waves of environmental action, both large and small. We want places to be eager to compete over green investment in their areas because of a real sense that it will deliver community benefit. That only happens when people have an opportunity to express the change they want to see, feel part of making that change happen and taste the tangible benefits that flow from it.
For more of Chamber UK’s analysis on the new government’s policies, please click here.