As we approach the general election on 4 July, I am struck by how little politicians are talking about the underlying structural problems of our society. Unless we address... Read More
As the school summer holidays draw to close, Amy Baker and Hannah Paylor from Carnegie UK look at how the rising cost-of-living has put extra strain on families. The summer... Read More
As we lurch from one unprecedented crisis to another, it’s easy to conclude that the many problems we currently face can only be managed. The best we can hope... Read More
In this blog, Rethinking Poverty’s Barry Knight and The Orwell Foundation’s Deputy Director Liz Wallace reflect on what our shared work reveals about young people’s political engagement and education... Read More
The Janette Kirton-Darling Memorial Prize was featured on the BBC Politics North programme, including winners Chopwell Regeneration Group. For more information on the night, you can download the event brochure here.... Read More
At a ceremony held at the Cathedral in Newcastle upon Tyne on 30 November 2022, the first prize of the Janette Kirton-Darling Memorial Prize was awarded to Chopwell Regeneration... Read More
The final applicant for the Janette Kirton-Darling Memorial Prize, Dwellbeing Shieldfield, is a community cooperative in the East of Newcastle. Members of the cooperative share life together, support one... Read More
The five applicants for the Janette Kirton-Darling Memorial Prize have so far focused on what local people can do to solve specific problems in our society – improving the... Read More
The fifth applicant for the Janette Kirton-Darling Memorial Prize is Citizens Advice Newcastle. This is a small, independent charity providing free, confidential and independent advice to people who live,... Read More
The fourth application for the Janette Kirton-Darling Memorial Prize continues the focus on race and identity, this time with an emphasis on migration. The International Community Organisation of Sunderland... Read More
In the first two applications for the Janette Kirton-Darling Memorial Prize, we saw the power of local people to affect issues that affect them. In one case, the result... Read More
Even Better, based in Jarrow, the second applicant for the Janette Kirton-Darling Memorial Prize, has a powerful way of addressing the problem of mental health. The approach harnesses the... Read More
Local people complain that they are ignored by politicians until election time. Then, they are wooed with all sorts of promises to improve their lives. Such behaviour causes much... Read More
In March, we announced the Janette Kirton-Darling Memorial Prize, to celebrate the initiative of organisations who have developed local community initiatives as effective means to #ShiftThePower to people whose voices are rarely... Read More
Stuart Kirk, Global Head of Responsible Investment at HSBC Asset Management, last month asked investors: “Who cares if Miami is six metres underwater in 100 years?” His widely-reported comments demonstrate the... Read More
At the heart of the debate on community wealth building is a fundamental question about employee ownership and who or what holds the keys to wealth in our society.... Read More
The cost-of-living crisis is descending on all of us, and while the solutions obviously have to be, to some degree, macro-oriented and defensive (see this great blog from James... Read More
The past five years of working on the place-based funding programme, Empowering Places, has opened my eyes to the benefits of community organising. One of the themes that has... Read More
The housing affordability crisis seems impossible to solve. Policies intended to help people priced out of the market often serve to fan the flames and increase costs. An example... Read More
As the energy price cap rises today, CLES Senior Researcher, Ellie Radcliffe, reflects on her recent visit to the Apse Big Energy Summit and considers the role of local authorities in balancing... Read More
The Orwell Youth Prize, which is run by The Orwell Foundation, uses the writing of George Orwell as a starting point to inspire young people to write about their... Read More
A low ebb Those of us working for social justice and human rights have faced strong headwinds in recent decades. A world obsessed with economic growth has led to... Read More
A group of thinkers and activists have been meeting together over the past six months to wrestle with how we might develop flourishing lives for all. Our first step... Read More
In its recently published Levelling Up White Paper, the government argued that the power of public procurement should be used to deliver support to communities and pledged to put... Read More
A growing gap in green space provision divides the UK according to recent research, with people in northern cities having access to fewer parks than their southern counterparts. Nationwide,... Read More
This piece on a ‘Democracy of Citizens’ is #8 in the ‘Visions for the Future of Democracy’ series curated by Involve for its 15th anniversary. We have asked authors to... Read More
Citizen-led retrofitting, long the poor relation of climate policy, could now be its secret weapon in accelerating rapid transition. Home renovation through the citizen-led model is making breakthroughs from... Read More
What if gender equality was at the heart of local plans for a more inclusive economy? Efforts to rebuild and recover economic prosperity in a time of crisis often... Read More
A new paper examining Shared Future’s Leeds Climate Change Citizens Jury highlights the co-benefits of deliberation, writes SF Director Jez Hall. Local authorities wanting to achieve meaningful carbon reduction, are increasingly turning... Read More
Power to Change has been a major funder of community-led climate action over recent years, with as much as 25% of our funding supporting community business climate action, including our CORE and Next Generation energy programmes. Our mission... Read More
Levelling up is never going to be one size fits all. To support the development of areas that currently have poorer economic and social outcomes, we need to recognise... Read More
How can local people build control and take action on things that matter to them? Our research shows that there are five main components of collective control: social connectedness;... Read More
The Prize The Janette Kirton-Darling Memorial Prize will be awarded to an organisation that has demonstrated outstanding leadership, creativity and impact in developing a local community initiative developing effective... Read More
Nearly half of the global population – between 3.3 and 3.6 billion people – lives in areas highly vulnerable to climate change. The brief window in which to limit... Read More
Recent years have seen a growing number of local councils across the UK, including Birmingham, Sandwell and Wigan, as well as the devolved administrations in Scotland and Wales adopting... Read More
Economists no longer talk of decarbonisation as a cost; climate action is now widely seen as an investment. Like any investment in new economic sectors, money spent is expected... Read More
Fascinating article from the Vogue Business news site on the growing relevance of degrowth – producing and consuming less and less to mitigate climate meltdown – and fashion. It... Read More
In November 2021, a group of ten people gathered together in Letchworth Garden City for two days of conversation. We began with a clear sense of our collective failure... Read More
Written at the outset of the pandemic, #BuildBackBetter showed how being forced to slow down had made people want a different future. Having a profound sense of vulnerability made... Read More
Earlier this week (Tuesday 25th January), the North of Tyne Cabinet endorsed the recommendations of a report by the Roundtable on Wellbeing in the North of Tyne and, in doing so, committed... Read More
The Levelling up White Paper was finally published last week. But despite 332 pages of what was a rather chaotic document (part text book, part policy, part analysis), when... Read More
The World Health Organization (WHO) describes mental health as “a state of wellbeing in which an individual realises his or her own abilities, can cope with the normal stresses of life,... Read More
As we know from long experience, Plymouth is a world-class powerhouse of social and civic enterprise – and it’s richly demonstrated in the Plymouth Octopus latest newsletter. POP (as... Read More
The government’s favourite term, ‘levelling up’, contains little meaning – just enough to be politically useful, but not enough to support any real plan. At NEF, we investigated the role of... Read More
At the close of the 2021 Community Wealth Building Summit, we reflect on remarks by our opening keynote speaker Tom Arthur MSP and the work that CLES has undertaken... Read More
New Podcast: How can we ensure decent, affordable housing? This episode of the Anti-Apathy Aunt podcast hosted by Deborah Doane, welcomed Gill Hughes from #thehullwewant, alongside Osama Bhutta from Shelter, responding to... Read More
Change is coming. It has to. Tackling the twin crises of climate breakdown and nature loss is the biggest challenge we are ever likely to face. It will hit... Read More
With COP 26 starting in Glasgow on 31st October 2021, we have brought together the recommendations from six citizens’ juries and assemblies run by Shared Future over the last... Read More
If Martians landed on Earth tomorrow, they would be surprised by many things, but they would be shocked by an economic system that allows a few billionaires to play... Read More