Welfare Reform on the Web (September 2005): Community Regeneration and Development - UK

Empowered or over-powered? The real experiences of local participation in the UK’s New Deal for Communities

A. Dinham

Community Development Journal, vol.40, 2005, p.301-312

Article draws on local people's experience of participation in one New Deal for Communities (NDC) scheme in the East End of London. Respondents reported experiencing growing factionalism as interest groups competed for resources. NDC processes were experienced as being too quick, too formal and failing to take account of local histories and relationships. Local people could also be intimidated and their contributions could be ignored by more powerful stakeholders such as local authorities.

Evaluation of local strategic partnerships: interim report

Office of the Deputy Prime Minister [and] Department for Transport

London: 2005

Local Strategic Partnerships (LSPs) bring together public, private, voluntary and community interests to provide a strategic framework within which partners can work together to secure the economic, social and environmental well-being of their area. This evaluation covers LSP organisational arrangements and capacity, strategy development and implementation, and the value added by the LSP.

Local quality of life indicators: supporting local communities to become sustainable

Audit Commission 2005

This report contains and explains the background to the 45 indicators that measure the quality of life in individual localities and the effectiveness of local sustainable community strategies, and which are also closely linked to national sustainable development indicators.

New Labour’s appropriation of the concept of community

I. Fremeaux

Community Development Journal, vol.40, 2005, p.265-274

Article identifies the various senses in which the word 'community' has been used in New Labour policy discourse. These include:

• Community as consisting of a web of supportive social networks
• Community as the collective ability to further the individual's interests
• Community as the instrument for implementing government regeneration schemes.