Evidence of the lived experiences of poverty in the UK

Only Reconnect

Published: 2023

A report of the ‘Reconnection Summit’ that took place in October 2022. The summit was organised by the Institute for Community Studies andTPXImpact, in partnership with Engage Britain and its ‘Grassroots Advisory Network (a group of community activists and leaders from across the UK who act as advisors on the work of Engage Britain and identify…

Community empowerment and mental wellbeing: longitudinal findings from a survey of people actively involved in the Big Local place-based initiative in England

Published: 2022

Community empowerment initiatives are receiving increased interest as ways of improving health and reducing health inequalities. This research examines longitudinal associations between collective control, social-cohesion and mental wellbeing amongst participants in the Big Local community empowerment initiative across 150 disadvantaged areas o…

Deductions: Drivers of Poverty

Published: 2022

Deductions are impoverishing individuals and families against a backdrop of low incomes, rising living costs and widening inequalities during Covid.

Deductions are payments that DWP automatically takes out from benefit payments to pay off debts owed to government from loans such as advance payments, or errors and historic benefit overpayments …

The Power of Community: Learning from Bristol’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic

Published: 2022

During 2021, Voscur worked with academics and students from the University of Bristol to investigate how the sector had adapted to ensure delivery of vital services during Covid-19.

With many in our sector unable to deliver vital services by established means, we wanted to find out how our colleagues from across the sector had continued to ful…

Now they see us: Communities responding to COVID-19

Published: 2021

The study is based on primary data collection from 26 communities across England and a literature review. Over 500 learning conversations have taken place with members of the community, activists and workers, alongside interviews with Big Local reps (individuals appointed by Local Trust to offer tailored support to a Big Local area and sha…

Rapid research COVID-19 Briefing #12: Community responses to COVID-19 – Potential and limits of community power in a pandemic

Published: 2021

New concepts of community power have risen up the policy agenda during COVID-19. Communities have widely been seen as integral to meeting local needs and as having the capacity to respond rapidly to the pandemic. The idea of community power is often assumed, in policy terms, to be a universally beneficial force. However, this fails to address i…

Rapid research COVID-19 Briefing #11: Community responses to COVID 19 – Power and communities

Published: 2021

Community spirit has flourished and community power has been realised during the pandemic. But as thinking turns to recovery and ‘building back better’, it is timely to think critically about how power operates within and between communities, and to consider what this might mean for its potential for transformation. In this briefing we look…

The social implications of Covid-19 on Communities

Published: 2020

For over 20 years scholars and, more recently, policymakers have proposed that a ‘turn’ to community will occur in times of uncertainty and globalised crisis. The global outbreak of Covid-19 has presented an unprecedented test for this hypothesis in the UK context. Individual and family- focused organising surged and continues to happe…

A Quiet Crisis: Local Government Spending on Disadvantage

Published:

Research conducted by New Policy Institute (NPI) reveals that councils in the fifth most deprived areas of England and Wales have been hardest hit with cuts for services addressing disadvantage. Despite having higher numbers of people in need, these councils have been forced to make difficult spending decisions.

The research highlights that to…