Levelling Up Through Community Power

BY ROB POWELL, STRATEGIC DIRECTOR FOR RESOURCES

But to achieve our vision, we need to get serious about reducing inequalities and improving social mobility. Opportunities need to depend much less on where you are born or who your parents are. We recognise that to do this for Warwickshire we need to think outside the box, innovate and experiment, and find new ways of working .

We understand the importance of not trying to reinvent the wheel and the value that lies in working in partnership. Connecting with New Local to develop our Community Powered Warwickshire concept demonstrated our commitment to tackle the longstanding challenges we face by helping residents and communities deliver on their priorities. In 2021 we launched our £1M Social Impact Fund which supported 21 community projects addressing social inequalities post—Covid based on community powered principles and held our first Warwickshirewide and cross-sector “Big Conversation” about how to develop and embed community power across the County. Our six ‘Groundbreakers’ focus on increasing community power and developing our organisational capability to deliver in a community powered way.

COMMUNITIES ARE AT THE HEART OF EVERYTHING WE DO IN WARWICKSHIRE. WE WANT COMMUNITIES ACROSS THE COUNTY TO BENEFIT FROM A THRIVING ECONOMY AND EVERYONE TO BE SUPPORTED TO HAVE SAFE, HAPPY AND HEALTHY LIVES.

Fast forward a year and we have re-committed ourselves to going further for our communities; we’ve refreshed our Council Plan, embedding community power across all services and, in the summer, we hosted our second “Big Conversation”. Levelling Up is a long-term mission, and we find ourselves near the beginning. Our four-part Levelling Up definition includes increasing social mobility, reducing disparities, creating sustainable futures, and building community power. Galvanising our communities is extremely important, but we cannot expect our communities to have the capability to solve every problem they face. Tackling historic inequalities and increasing social mobility requires more - more from ourselves and more from our partners.

We knew from the start we wanted to be bold and targeted with our county-wide approach to Levelling Up. Being evidence-led is paramount and has enabled us to prioritise and target resources and communities. We decided to convene our county-wide public sector partners through our “Team Warwickshire” approach. Our districts and boroughs, police, health, and business partners have come together for multiple workshops, looking at the data to understand what our communities need and how we can work together to achieve mutual long-term goals. This has fed into our county-wide priorities and the identification of our priority places and communities.

We have wasted no time in taking action and beginning the next phase of Levelling Up in Warwickshire; the development of our district and borough Levelling Up Plans. These will take Levelling Up further and give it a local flavour that we hope will resonate with residents. Action focused, these plans will concentrate on the connections between our countywide delivery against the 12 national Levelling Up missions and specific place priorities, linked to the work of local ICS Place Boards. Alongside this, we are beginning pilots in some of our 22 most deprived Lower Super Output Areas, which will be co-produced with the community to enhance pride in place. We will increase pride in place and community engagement through arts and culture. Recently, Warwickshire Library

Service has been successful in its bid to receive prestigious National Portfolio status from the Arts Council, focused in the north of the county where we see the greatest inequalities. We recognise that communities need more than just physical assets and infrastructure to thrive. Our libraries becoming National Portfolio Organisations provides us with a powerful opportunity to use arts and cultural events to raise literacy rates, aspiration and educational attainment and will target delivery where there are gaps in attainment. Our goal with Levelling Up is to build resilience, capacity and skills within communities to mitigate future challenges such as the rising cost-of-living, but we are a long way from achieving our ambitions. In the meantime, we understand how our most vulnerable communities are struggling and that we need to go further and faster in delivering support with them.

This demands a new way of doing things. Building on the lessons learnt through Covid, Warwickshire County Council is once again playing a convening role on the cost-of-living, bringing together county-wide partners in November to host a countywide summit on the cost-of-living. We believe in the strength of our communities, partners, and staff to help residents endure this immediate challenge while we pursue the fundamental long-term changes required to level up in Warwickshire.