Making better use of community assets

One of the ways that communities can be empowered is by owning and managing assets - land, buildings, community facilities, parks, street markets, swimming pools. Not only can this result in a community-owned revenue stream but it also brings people from different backgrounds together around projects that benefit the community and helps to develop skills, confidence and expertise. Local authorities and Local Strategic Partnerships are expected to adopt a strategic approach to community asset ownership.

The Quirk Review concluded that there is currently too little ownership and management under community control and communities are losing out as a result. It recommended that there should be much greater access for local authorities and community organisations to expert advice and organisational development support relating particularly to the transfer and management by communities of land and buildings - since the barriers to asset ownership are generally to do with ignorance about what is possible and a reluctance to devolve control to community groups.

Specifically, the Review made five recommendations all of which were accepted by Government. The Government wants to increase the number of people engaged in the running and ownership of local services and assets so that 'in every locality a proportion of all public assets are in the ownership or management of sustainable and energetic community organisations'.

Quirk Review: five recommendations accepted by Government:

  1. The publication of comprehensive, up-to-date and authoritative guidance on all aspects of local authority asset management, including within it detailed and explicit guidance on the transfer of assets to community management and ownership
  2. The publication of a toolkit for local authorities and other public bodies on risk assessment and risk management in asset transfer to communities
  3. The provision of much greater access for local authorities and community organisations to expert advice and organisational development support relating particularly to the transfer and management by communities of land and buildings
  4. The smarter investment of public funds designated for community-led asset-based developments, where permissible, through the involvement of specialist financial intermediaries with expertise in the field and the ability to achieve high leverage ratios
  5. A major campaign to spread the word, through seminars, roadshows, training, use of the media, online and published information, and the dissemination of good practice, as well as promotion of 'bottom up mechanisms' such as the proposed Community Call for Action (CCfA) and the existing Public Request to Order Disposal (PROD).

In support of this, it has a programme of awareness raising and capacity development with community groups, and is taking this forward through measures in the Community Empowerment White Paper, Communities in Control. New measures and approaches that will enable people to own and run services for themselves include:

  • establishing an Asset Transfer Unit through partnership between CLGGlossary: is a shortened name for the central government of Communities and Local Government and the Development Trusts Association to provide advice on community ownership in order to increase activity in this area
  • requiring stronger accountability to the community in relation to under-used assets owned by local authorities
  • putting in place a national framework to support Community Land Trusts (CLTs)
  • establishing a new Social EnterpriseGlossary: A social enterprise is a profit-making businesses set up to tackle a social or environmental need Unit to champion the role of social enterpriseGlossary: A social enterprise is a profit-making businesses set up to tackle a social or environmental need models in delivering Communities and Local Government's strategic objectives, by recognising their contribution in areas such as housing, regeneration and creating empowered and cohesive communities
  • establishing a new Empowerment Fund.