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Last updated: 03 February 2010
The Building Stronger Communities Taskforce was commissioned by the Cabinet Office in April 2009, as a key part of Office for the Third Sector’s (OTS) Real Help for Communities action plan – a £42.5 million investment plan for the sector in the downturn.
Chaired by Dame Julia Cleverdon, Vice President of Business in the Community (BITC), it had the remit to:
‘explore and examine the innovative ways in which the private and third sectors are working together, to help support communities in England at particular risk of fracture due to the downturn, and make recommendations to Government, the private and third sectors, that could enhance the building of stronger communities in the face of the downturn.’
The taskforce completed its research in three months, consulting with over 70 corporates, individuals and third sector organisations. It focussed its efforts on five in–depth studies of communities in England: Swindon, Stoke, Calderdale, Southwark and rural Lincolnshire.
The final taskforce report - Building Stronger Communities, Business and the third sector: Innovation in tough times (refer to link below to download a copy) made 10 recommendations for consideration by Businesses, Government (OTS, Department for Communities and Local Government - CLG and Department for Business, Innovation and Skills - BIS) and the Third Sector, to enhance the building of stronger communities in the recession & beyond.
These were divided into three priorities for action:
Highlights the importance of building strong local partnerships to identify and address the most pressing needs of local communities, and suggests measures to strengthen these.
Outlines the urgent need to establish and highlight instances of responsible downsizing as best practice examples for the corporate community, and outlines how third sector organisations facing significant organisational change can also consider downsizing responsibly.
Highlights the need for the business and third sector organisations to develop more innovative partnerships in the future and to more effectively leverage their combined expertise to achieve benefits for communities.
The report launched to a cross-sector audience at the House of Lords in July 2009. Angela Smith – Minister for the Third Sector, and Ian Lucas - Minister for Corporate Social Responsibility, jointly agreed that Government (OTS, BIS and CLG) would explore the recommendations further by hosting a small high level cross sector ministerial roundtable, and then formally respond.
In preparation for the roundtable, OTS and BITC held three working sessions during October and the beginning of November to explore proposals and ideas for next steps in more detail.
One working session discussed building capacity of the third sector to create new types of partnerships with the private sector. There was also a social enterprise working session which focused on social enterprises as suppliers of goods & services to the private sector as well as partnerships between the social enterprise & private sectors. The anatomy of a 'community footprint' was also explored which looked at how the concept could be defined and developed further and how it could be used to develop local third sector relationships with the private sector.
A ministerial roundtable was jointly hosted by Angela Smith, Rosie Winterton, the Minister for Local Government and BIS on 5th November, which explored the Building Stronger Communities Taskforce recommendations further in anticipation of the Government’s response.
Taskforce calls for effective partnerships across sectors to beat the recession
Government's formal response: