Understanding success in the Big Local programme

Rob Macmillan is a Principal Research Fellow at the Centre for Regional Economic and Social Research (CRESR) at Sheffield Hallam University. He reflects on the latest report from the longitudinal multimedia study Our Bigger Story, and what its findings from 15 Big Local areas can tell us about understanding success in the programme.

As the Big Local programme moves towards its final stages, whether it should be seen as a success is a question which inevitably gains prominence. How should and will it be judged?

In the years ahead, it will always be easier to ask than answer the questions ‘Did Big Local work?’ and ‘Was Big local worth it?’. The very nature, design and ethos of the programme – long-term, flexible, non-prescriptive and resident-led, in 150 very different neighbourhoods – makes these questions almost impossible to answer, at least in any simple way. Big Local was designed to be radically different from other programmes, in that funding could be spent over a decade or more, at communities’ own pace, and according to their own plans and priorities.

Local Trust has sought to address this in several different ways, including a wide-ranging programme of research and evaluation, studies and seminars, but also by supporting continuous reflection and learning within and across Big Local areas.

Alongside this, since 2015 a longitudinal multimedia evaluation, Our Bigger Story, has been working with a group of 15 Big Local areas across England to follow their aims, activities, progress, challenges and learning. The research is being carried out by a team of academic and voluntary sector researchers, led by the Centre for Regional Economic and Social Research at Sheffield Hallam University.

Defining and understanding success in Big Local

In the evaluation’s latest report, Understanding Success in Big Local, the Our Bigger Story team explored how success was, and could be, understood by different stakeholders in the programme.

We know that Big Local areas and their experiences over time have differed considerably. So, we asked what conditions and factors might explain the variation, and have helped or hindered their progress towards the four, high-level programme outcomes, namely that:

1. Communities will be better able to identify local needs and take action in response to them.
2. People will have increased skills and confidence, so that they continue to identify and respond to needs in the future.
3. The community will make a difference to the needs it prioritises.
4. The area will be an even better place to live.

Our conversations with people working on Big Local soon surfaced a variety of perspectives on what success means and looks like, depending on:

• The position held within the programme (e.g. those working within Big Local areas, Local Trust staff and trustees)
• The level at which success is viewed (e.g. programme, community, individual)
• Assessments made at different points of time

All 15 Our Bigger Story areas made progress towards programme outcomes, but success varied over time and between areas. Some were able to make more of the opportunities available to them through the Big Local programme than others and could make and sustain greater progress against more of the outcomes.

While some success can be identified in all of the areas, some have made far less progress against the four outcomes and relatively little seems to have shifted in terms of power and agency. The Big Local journey has clearly been smoother for some than for others.

Arguably the most significant factor was the engagement of skilled, capable individuals who were particularly instrumental in success locally.”

The conditions and ways of working that affected success

The evaluation analysed seven conditions which shaped the areas’ prospects for success:

1. Basic demographic and socio-economic characteristics, including population and levels of deprivation
2. Levels of community activity, seen in the number of active groups, organisations and individual volunteers within an area
3. Community leadership, shown through a clear direction, devolved decision-making, and local ownership of the programme
4. Relationships with others, including parish councils, local authorities and larger voluntary sector organisations
5. The collective identity residents had with the designated Big Local area
6. Community controlled spaces, such as physical spaces and community buildings
7. Individuals’ skills and capabilities available to each Big Local area

These seven conditions could be considered sets of resources that Big Local areas either already had or were able to build through the programme, which together shaped the possibilities of success. No one condition alone could account for the success or otherwise of a Big Local area.

As well as these conditions, it was also apparent that the ways in which residents approached and delivered Big Local served to enable or constrain the chances of success. We identified four ways of working in Big Local in this respect:

1. Robust governance structures
2. Acting strategically
3. Engaging with effective support through the programme
4. Managing conflict

No single condition or way of working alone can explain why certain areas were more successful than others in terms of progress against the four Big Local outcomes. Unfortunately, there isn’t a magic bullet or superfood ingredient that always unlocks community power and success in resident-led community action. It is more a combination of factors, interacting in complex ways, which proves to be consequential.

However, arguably the most significant factor was the engagement of skilled, capable individuals who were particularly instrumental in success locally. They were people, including key partnership members and paid workers, who drove Big Local but who also took a wider group of residents with them on the journey.

They helped to ensure that the community vision was collectively held and developed pathways enabling residents to grow community activity, build relationships, configure leadership, create community-controlled spaces and generate a sense of collective identity.

Capturing the learning generated by Big Local

There may not be straightforward answers to the questions, ‘Did Big Local work and was it a success?’, given the nature of the programme. But what cannot be doubted is the learning that has been generated, by offering residents in different circumstances the opportunity to make decisions about shaping and making their communities better places to live.

This is why Local Trust is developing a new website, Learning from Big Local, to bring together an overview of the key research, learning and stories from across the Big Local programme. The site will launch in 2025 and remain live after the Big Local programme ends, with the goal of informing community-led work into the future.

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