Talk and discussion about the role of community anchors in public service reform, drawing on What Works Scotland research.
This webinar drew from the recent What Works Scotland research report on community-led, holistic community organisations – in particular as community development trusts and community-controlled housing associations.
In the first half, the researchers:
- introduced the community anchor ‘model’ and provide some illustrations from the research
- made links between the role of community anchors and the Christie Commission’s aspirations for public service reform in Scotland
- highlighted themes of social change – relevant to both community anchors and public service reform – of local democracy, community resilience for sustainable development and inequalities
The second half offered space for questions and discussion and brought together practitioners (community sector and public services), policymakers (local and national), citizens and researchers for further dialogue.
The webinar was led by the researchers – James Henderson and Oliver Escobar (What Works Scotland) and Philip Revell (Sustaining Dunbar).
Resources
Webinar recording
Unfortunately the quality of the slides in the video isn’t very clear. We recommend also referring to the slides in the PDF.
Community Anchors webinar presentation slides ( PDF)
This video is also available on YouTube
Read the report
Report exploring the developing roles of key community sector organisations known as community anchors. It draws from six exemplar anchor organisations to explore their roles in engaging with, leading and challenging public service reform; how public services and the state can better support community anchors and community sector development; and the potential roles of anchors in building local democracy, community resilience for sustainable development, and wider social change.
Related resources
The community sector and its relevance to public service reform
The community sector, including community anchors, can have a key role to play in the development of public service reform in Scotland – partnering, leading and challenging. Here we outline why we think the community sector has that potential and prompt further reflections from others as to what that means in actual practice.
July 2018
This think piece reflects on the potential of multi-purpose, independent community-led organisations, often called community anchors, to lead on ‘highly localised’ service design and delivery, and related local economic, social and democratic developments.
November 2015
