Post-Covid Councils: Place and Community

The DHSC methodology for recording Covid-related deaths was recently changed. We examine this here, and provide updates on ONS analysis of Covid-related deaths by geography, ethnicity, and occupation in England and Wales. An ONS comparison of mortality across 29 European countries up to 30 June is also included. Read this briefing.

This briefing profiles the scale of the economic crisis triggered by Covid-19 and is based largely on data available to end June 2020. It looks at the spending commitments associated with the policy response to Covid and examines recent developments in GDP, employment and unemployment, and the public finances. Read this briefing.

This briefing is intended as a route map through the main sources of information on the Covid-19 epidemic, which provide the data required to assess progress towards the government’s tests for easing lockdown. Read this briefing.

This briefing looks at two reports that came out in May, after the UK had endured over a month of unprecedented rupture caused by the lockdown. The reports both look at place – rather than what the economic impact is they examine the ‘where’. Read this briefing.

It became clear that Black and minority ethnic people and the poor were dying in disproportionate numbers from Covid-19. Will this pandemic mark a sea change in policy to tackle health inequalities in the future? Read this briefing.

Early on in lockdown, this briefing examined some of those groups who, it was becoming clear, were facing the most severe consequences from Covid-19 – suffering a disproportionate impact, both in the UK and globally. Read this briefing.

Natalie Creary and her colleagues from Black Thrive discuss how local government can collect and respond to data in ways that are centred on the perspective of communities rather than reinforcing stereotypes. Read this article.

What are the roles for both local government and communities as part of a post-Covid recovery process, asks Hannah Ormston from the Carnegie Trust. Read this article.

Brent Leader, Cllr Muhammed Butt writes for us about the council’s Poverty Commission, the very clear link that the report draws between the housing crisis and persistent poverty and the work that Brent is doing to tackle this issue. Read this article.

Persistent and enduring levels of health inequalities have been reinforced by the pandemic. Adam Tinson of The Health Foundation asks how we can prevent a worsening of health outcomes linked to poverty as the recession starts to bite. Read this article.

Post-Covid councils cannot operate in isolation. Just as resident engagement helps stimulate a feeling of belonging to a town or community, tenant empowerment should lead to joint ownership of decisions in housing and the wider neighbourhood. Read this briefing.

This briefing introduces the concept of Community Wealth Building: an inclusive model for economic development focussed on creating sustainable local economies that generate wealth and keep that wealth circulating in the local economy. Read this briefing.

What are the key questions we need to be asking about effective engagement and empowerment in the recovery and beyond? The Carnegie Trust has set out a route map to recovery which takes account of what we have learned so far from the responses to Covid. Read this briefing.

This briefing focuses on the South African experience of community engagement and participation, but many of the concerns are common to other countries, including the UK. Read this briefing.

Economic recovery from Covid-19 looks set to be a long and painful process, writes Tom Lloyd Goodwin, Associate Director at CLES. He urges progressive reform through community wealth building as a way of driving sustainable local economic growth. Read this article.

This article by David Marlow sets out an explicitly provocative narrative to stimulate the thinking of local authorities and partners about whether there is and should be a ‘think global – act local’ dimension to their place-based recovery strategies and priorities. Read this article.

As we look to the future of our streets, fairer reallocation of space is a priority leading the way across towns and cities in the UK. In the context of Covid-19 and the competing claims to street space it adds, how can we plan our streets to ensure they represent the needs of communities while contributing to a sense of place? Read this briefing.

In the last few months, some seaside towns have been struggling to cope with an unexpected influx of visitors, while others saw tourism revenue fall. But what are their long term prospects? We look here at the steps councils are already taking to ensure coastal areas have a brighter future. Read this briefing.

There is a growing divide in economic fortunes and political values between the UK’s cities and towns. Economic and social challenges can make places more susceptible to toxic narratives. This report from Hope Not Hate focuses on the resilience of towns to social changes brought by immigration and diversity. Read this briefing.

A roundup of our recent work on health inequalities, including work on longstanding health issues such as life expectancies and obesity alongside briefings covering how Covid-19 has both created new and exacerbated preexisting inequalities between groups. Read this content.

Cities have a long relationship with pandemics and a history of evolving in response to adverse events. Will Covid-19 change cities and towns? Will city dwellers flee cities for the suburbs, towns and countryside? Will cities become stronger, greener and more inclusive? Or will the recovery mean ‘business as usual’? Read this briefing.

The City of Sydney’s recently released City Recovery Plan sets out the next steps in Council’s response to Covid-19 and its impacts. Informed by community consultation and analysis, the focus is on a Community Recovery Plan. Read this briefing.

A recent report provides the first tally of minority ethnic councillors in the UK. It is important we carry on counting so that we can monitor progress, writes Jane Sankarayya. Lack of access to local government by any part of a community has serious implications for exacerbating current inequality and disadvantage. Read this article.

This write-up outlines the key discussion points from LGIU’s second webinar in its Post-Covid Councils series, Place and Community, which took place on Tuesday, 15th September.