Community Engagement

Community engagement takes place when local residents participate in dialogue about the well-being of their community. It can take place within communities, with local people and community groups working together to better understand each others needs and find solutions and opportunities to issues raised. Community engagement is also increasingly used to strengthen the links between communities and wider statutory partners, for instance local government and public service agencies.

Under the Local Government & Public Involvement in Health Act 2007, local government is required to involve local people in deciding local priorities which are then fed into area-wide plans. Community involvement is defined at different levels i.e. informing residents about relevant issues, consulting residents about plans or involving them in the Local Strategic Partnership decision-making process.

Rural communities have traditionally used powerful approaches to community engagement supported by high levels of volunteering effort. In recent years, work on community engagement has been driven forward through the use of the community-led parish planning process.  By working together within the community, local people debate and create their own vision for a sustainable future. Where early links are made with local government and service providers as part of parish plan process, this can result in communities having real influence with decision-makers on public and local services.

The Rural Community Action Network has a long history of working with individual communities to deliver parish plans and brokering the required relationship with local government officers and the setting of priorities within the work of Local Strategic Partnerships. Over 4,000 rural communities have so far created their own action plans as a result of the community-led parish plan process. Many local authorities are now using the resulting action plans as the building blocks on which to base their statutory plans.

Effective community engagement helps to make sure that:

• Public services reflect and respond to the views and concerns of local people
• People within a community feel involved in and responsible for improving their quality of life, and
• Solutions work over the long term

Can community-led planning empower communities in urban as well as rural areas? Click here for our latest update for the Community Empowerment White Paper

Click here for the joint submission made by ACRE, Action for Market Towns and the National Association of Local Councils to the government's forthcoming Community Empowerment White Paper