The role of paid workers in supporting a community-led programme

The Big Local programme aims to put more power, resource and decision-making in the hands of local communities. Most Big Local partnerships have chosen to hire paid staff, who support the delivery of Big Local in a huge variety of different ways.

This briefing is part of our Local Trust research papers series, originally shared internally with staff, and explores the following research questions:

• How do Big Local workers contribute to ensuring power resides in local communities?
• To what extent do Big Local workers enable resident-led decision-making through performing their roles well?
• What are the values, skills and attributes that Big Local workers need to best be able to support resident-led decision-making?

A version of this paper was published internally by Local Trust in July 2022. It was published on the Local Trust website in August 2022.