MD2726 Recovery Fund - Building Strong Communities

1.1. The Building Strong Communities mission sets out the overarching goal and key aims for the GLA and strategic partners in relation to supporting community-level recovery from COVID-19. The timescale for the mission is from 2020 – 2025. The goal is that ‘By 2025 all Londoners will have access to a community hub ensuring they can volunteer, get support and build strong networks’.

1.2. This will be achieved through work supporting these four key aims:

• support Londoners to lead the recovery in their own communities through a focus on hyperlocal, community-led activities, and co-production with a priority on working with and through the Londoners most affected by the pandemic;

• amplify unheard Londoners’ voices working with and through organisations to reach and amplify the voice of Londoners to ensure that they can bring about change;

• develop and build the reach of mutual aid, faith and equality grassroots groups; work together to build hyper-local action, networks and knowledge to create resilience and centre citizen voice, particularly in those communities most impacted by COVID-19; and

• build feelings of belonging and decrease loneliness and social isolation by exploring and promoting the implementation of community-led solutions (for example cross-generational work, peer support, community hubs).

1.3. This MD seeks approval to deploy resource from the GLA Recovery Fund to projects that support the aims of the Building Strong Communities mission, as outlined below: Supporting mutual aid, hyper-local volunteering and inclusivity

1.4. Mutual aid utilises the assets in communities and encourages a sense of reciprocity. The proliferation of mutual aid groups in recent months has enabled models of frictionless, hyper-local volunteering that has been easy to engage with for those who had not volunteered before.

1.5. Over 700 mutual aid groups have developed across London since March 2020. These informal, hyper-local networks of neighbours have provided emergency food support, delivered medicine to people in need and helped stave off social isolation for shielding individuals. These types of hyper-local volunteering have aided the efficacy of crisis response and highlighted an important mechanism to achieving some of the aims under the Building Strong Communities mission; showing how Londoners can take a lead in the recovery. However mutual aid groups have not developed in all parts of London and seem to be particularly focused on areas with high latent levels of social capital.

1.6. The GLA has been working with partners through the Communities, Faith Voluntary Sector and Funding (CFVSF) subgroup of the Strategic Coordinating Group (SCG) for London throughout the COVID-19 crisis. The GLA conducted a piece of research to better understand the experience of mutual aid groups in London and to identify how the GLA and partners can best support them to continue. Following on from the research online discussions were held with research partners and strategic bodies to identify actions that the GLA can take to support hyper-local volunteering. As London experiences a second peak of COVID-19, sustained hyper-local community support will be vital in ensuring that local needs are met. Ongoing informal volunteering activity is also important for strengthening social connections and increasing community resilience. This decision and the activities detailed below build on the research and needs identified through this analysis and partnership work.

1.7. This decision seeks approval for expenditure of £125,000 towards supporting mutual aid and hyper-local volunteering in London. This includes GLA expenditure of £70,000 in 2020/21 and expenditure of £55,000 in 2021/22.

1.8. This expenditure will be allocated as follows:

• a contribution of up to £30,000 to the Civil Society Roots 2 programme (approved under cover of DD2501). This will resource up to three collaborative partnerships involving mutual aid groups that have developed over the pandemic to strengthen their networks, build relationships across difference and involve more Londoners in volunteering and local social action;

• awarding up to £15,000 in grant funding to a voluntary sector organisation to develop pan-London peer support opportunities, on a pilot basis. This might include sourcing and delivering training for mutual aid groups, for example. The follow up work of this pilot will be commissioning up to a further £35,000 of support for hyper-local networks and volunteering activity;

• expenditure of up to £25,000 on research and development of a toolkit which will look at how mutual aid groups can build local relationships across difference and work to reduce social isolation and loneliness; and

• awarding up to £20,000 grant funding to a voluntary sector organisation to commission, develop and deliver support which will help voluntary and community sector organisations to offer inclusive volunteering opportunities and improve equitable access to volunteering.

1.9. This Decision requests approval to delegate to the Assistant Director of Team London and Community Sport authority to approve detailed expenditure plans to the value of £35,000 via an Assistant Director decision form, to build on the learning from engaging with local mutual aid networks in the financial year 2021/22. Coordinated support for the social enterprise and community business sector

1.10. Whilst the need for economic recovery from COVID-19 is acute, even prior to the pandemic there was a growing consensus that local economic activity can do more to secure social value and shared prosperity.

1.11. ‘High Streets & Town Centres: Adaptive Strategies’ – a report published in 2019 by the Mayor’s Good Growth by Design programme, building on 2017’s ‘High Streets for All’ – sets out an investment case for London’s high streets that aims to better balance an existing focus on economic and commercial values (defined by an uplift in spending, productivity and land values) with one that better recognises social values. This demonstrated that whilst statistically London’s high streets appear to be doing well overall, the picture is uneven and contributing to social and economic inequalities, with some struggling to serve their local communities adequately. One example of the way new investment could deal with these inequalities was through strategies to better support London’s diverse communities to participate socially and economically to benefit from London’s opportunities and success.

1.12. By encouraging growth in the social economy – a mix of social enterprise, co-ops or mutual structures, community business and other ‘mission’ based organisations – as part of our economic recovery, we can re-build the social contract within local economies. These structures promote local participation, generate social values, secure local wealth and opportunities and therefore embed future resilience. Danny Kruger MP in his 2020 report to Government (Levelling up our Communities: proposals for a new social covenant ) highlights the valuable role that social enterprise can play in securing social infrastructure; a crucial component of levelling up places and dealing with structural inequalities. He suggests that they can both connect people and strengthen community, whilst driving local employment opportunities and wealth creation, particularly in struggling areas. Power to Change have gone one further to demonstrate the role that locally-rooted social enterprise – or community business – has in high street recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. Their 2020 report in partnership with the London School of Economics shows how community businesses build local social and economic resilience, support more diverse communities and help to re-balance the social and economic functions of places to better weather shocks, be they economic recession, change through investment or a global pandemic. Community business (a type of locally rooted social enterprise) demonstrate attributes that can contribute to building strong communities. They:

• are locally rooted in place and respond to its needs; often providing products and services required by the local community or secure social impact through commercial activities. 85% nationally aim to reduce social isolation, 82% to promote greater community cohesion;

• are proven to emerge in and support hard-hit communities with seven in ten currently located within the top 30% most deprived areas in England; • trade for the benefit of the local community but contribute to the local economy: they tend to create local jobs (with fair pay and employment practices) and purchase products and services from other local businesses;

• are accountable to the local community often putting communities in charge, for example through a community shares offer that creates members who have a voice in the business’s direction; and • secure broad community impact by engaging with a variety of different (often under-represented) groups in the area, promoting volunteering and building capacity.

1.13. This decision seeks approval for grant funding of up to £150,000 to support a range of projects and activities that support the social enterprise and community business sector. These grants will promote economic and social recovery as well as encouraging the growth of locally-rooted social enterprise. An open call will be made to local organisations through means such as press releases, GLA networks and targeted communications to the sector. The applications will demonstrate how the respondents plan to foster collaborative, innovative and experimental solutions for locally-identified challenges. Criteria will be developed to ensure a fair application and award process, with appropriately experienced GLA officers evaluating applications.

1.14. This funding will allow the organisations to access:

• dedicated support, guidance and advice to establish or re-structure organisations as community businesses or other structures that secure social value;

• research, advocacy, partnership building and networking within the sector in London to share best practice and amplify impact; and

• specialist advice to enable social enterprise or community business to better access high street and town centre property or manage social infrastructure.

1.15. As a result, there will be more businesses delivering local social impacts on London’s high streets and in turn contributing to local resilience and building stronger communities. Expenditure will occur in 2021/22 with applications received and assessed in 2020/21. Mayor of London Volunteering Awards

1.16. The annual Mayor of London Volunteering Awards celebrate Londoners who freely give their time to their communities and help to make London the best city it can be. In these unprecedented times, it is even more important to acknowledge Londoners who have volunteered on the front line during the COVID-19 crisis bringing vital supplies, support and comfort to the most vulnerable people in our communities. Each day, tens of thousands of volunteers help charities to deliver their services. During the pandemic volunteers have performed acts of kindness in the most challenging of circumstances.

1.17. This year the awards will focus on volunteering activity that has supported Londoners throughout the COVID-19 outbreak. It has previously been an event hosted at City Hall and as such budget has been used to provide an event which our nominees can attend. As the external environment is constantly changing a physical event is not possible in 2020. A model of volunteer recognition that can be flexible to external circumstances has been developed to recognise the contribution of volunteers and safely celebrate their efforts.

1.18. The Mayor of London Volunteering Awards this year will also include small grants to the charities of the winning volunteers. This is to recognise the charities’ role in supporting communities through COVID-19 and to provide resource to support their volunteer involvement. The winning volunteers are representing charities and local organisations, which will receive £5,000 or £10,000 of grant funding to fund their volunteering work. This funding is awarded as a grant directly to the organisations and will be subject to the organisations passing all due diligence checks to be undertaken by the GLA, and the execution and return to the GLA of a funding agreement. There will be no additional costs for the virtual event.

1.19. The announcement of the Mayor of London Volunteering Awards will happen on 5th December in order to coincide with International Volunteer Day.

Supporting mutual aid and hyper-local volunteering

2.1. This programme will work closely with external partners and build on existing community assets in order to help sustain models of mutual aid that have developed over the last six months and develop networks in areas where mutual aid does not already exist.

2.2. The outcomes for the work on developing London-wide support for mutual aid will be:
• improved resources to enable Londoners to start and participate in Mutual Aid groups;
• increased sustainability of mutual aid coordinating bodies;
• increased connections and opportunities for peer support and sharing learning between mutual aid groups;
• identification of how local community responses, including mutual aid groups, can reach out to and include diverse community members and build local relationships across difference;
• expansion of the reach of mutual aid groups across diverse communities in their local area, supporting more Londoners;
• mutual aid groups and other community responses are enabled to support the building of relationships across difference at a local level;
• reduction of local social division;
• increased feelings of local belonging and social mixing; and
• reduced feelings of loneliness and social isolation.

Coordinated support for social enterprise and community business

2.3. Aligned with the recovery objectives and outcomes of the ‘Building Strong Communities’ and ‘High Streets for All’ recovery missions, this package of £150,000 funding, entirely revenue, will cover a suite of activities that develop our understanding of the sector, its value to London’s economic and social recovery and how best to encourage or support growth of this type of activity.

2.4. This supports the Building Strong Communities Mission by resourcing Londoners to lead recovery in their own communities. It supports the ‘High Streets for All’ mission by supporting cross-sector partnerships to work with community groups and directly deliver a diverse, resilient and thriving mix of High street and town centre activity within easy reach for Londoners. This in turn will strengthen community assets that provide a sense of belonging.

2.5. Outcomes will include:
• increased understanding of the social enterprise and community business sector across London and how it can support social and economic recovery;
• growth in the community business/social purpose organisation sector or the social value contributed by local economic activity;
• new opportunities for local / community organisations and businesses to access support to structure their governance to better deliver local social impact and promote local ownership of business and assets that meet community needs;
• new opportunities for local / community organisations to build capacity, develop robust business models and explore more sustainable, long-term operation or management of property or assets of community value;
• new opportunities for communities hardest hit by the pandemic to secure a stake in the local economy through recovery and benefit from new social value created through economic activity;
• coordination of resources, expertise and support across the sector to maximise impact; and
• opportunities to secure vital social and cultural infrastructure in the future, through hybrid social and commercial models, especially when linked to future strategic capital regeneration investments.

Mayor of London Volunteering Awards

2.6. The objectives of this programme are:
• to recognise the huge impact of volunteering during COVID-19 through highlighting positive stories of individual volunteers and organisations working in London;
• to raise profile of diverse volunteers and a wide scope of volunteering achievements by ensuring we promote the awards through our equity partners to enable a diverse pool of applicants, by recruiting a diverse team of shortlisters from across the GLA and by ensuring our winners reflect London’s diversity; and
• to give financial support to small organisations and charities that have played a vital part in supporting Londoners throughout the COVID-19 period.

2.7. Outcomes:
• the profile of the Mayor of London Volunteering Awards will lead to a greater awareness and visibility of volunteering and the positive impact this has on communities and individuals. This links with the Building Strong Communities mission by showing examples of Londoners leading in recovery and amplifying unheard voices;
• the Mayor of London Volunteering Awards will encourage and showcase the continuation of volunteering during COVID-19, by celebrating specific efforts to tackle the impact of the virus and by featuring organisations that have delivered differently during a period of lockdown; and
• as a result of positive volunteering stories in London and the link to the celebration of International Volunteer Day, it is hoped that there will be increased value for volunteering and community support across London that will continue to become a normal part of life beyond the COVID-19 crisis.

3.1. Under Section 149 of the Equality Act 2010, as a public authority, the GLA must have ‘due regard’ of the need to: eliminate unlawful discrimination, harassment and victimisation; and advance equality of opportunity and foster good relations between people who have a protected characteristic and those who do not.

3.2. Team London and Community Sport’s projects aim to ensure that all Londoners can access volunteering, sport and physical activity opportunities and indeed by doing so support other Londoners equally throughout the city. By promoting and championing volunteering and social action these programmes will increase opportunities for Londoners to play an active role in their communities.

3.3. Team London previously commissioned research to look at the barriers and challenges involved in getting Londoners to participate in volunteering. This was to ensure that volunteering and social action programmes are structured in a way that is as appealing and accessible as possible. The programme to support inclusive volunteering will build on this research to strengthen good practice in involving diverse communities in volunteering and thus ensure that volunteering is open to all. The Survey Of Londoners showed that volunteering and social action participation improves social integration, and so increasing accessibility of programmes will improve rates of social integration experienced by volunteers.

3.4. The work also embraces London’s diversity and fosters good relations by connecting Londoners from a variety of backgrounds together in support of common causes.

3.5. The coordinated support for social enterprise and community business workstream delivers on the Mayor’s Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Strategy, namely the strategic objective of supporting effective ways to involve communities in the development of their neighbourhoods and the wider city, with particular interest in the role of older people, disabled people, parents, Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic groups, deprived neighbourhoods and faith communities by, for example, promoting usage and ownership of public spaces and businesses by under-represented communities.

Key risks and issues

4.1. The following table sets out the key risks and issues for the four projects:

Links to Mayoral strategies and priorities

4.2. As mentioned above, these activities link into multiple of the Recovery mission priorities and are supporting pieces of work that can start immediately.

4.3. The workstreams will support the Building Strong Communities Mission by:

• channelling support to Londoners at a local level to lead recovery in their communities;

• working with partners to build hyper-local action, networks and knowledge to create resilience, particularly in those communities most impacted by COVID-19; and

• building feelings of belonging by exploring and promoting the implementation of community-led solutions (for example through mutual aid support and social infrastructure.

4.4. These programmes also support the Cross-Cutting Principle (CCP) of collaborating and involving London’s diverse communities by working in partnership with locally based delivery partners to strengthen mutual aid and disseminating learning from research on belonging to improve local practice.

4.5. Participation and building of relationships between Londoners will be promoted through: • working with communities and civil society groups across London to encourage active participation in community and civic life. That means supporting Londoners of all ages to volunteer and to take action to improve the city, this links to the recommendations in the Culture Strategy and the Sport and Physical Activity Strategy;

• encouraging more Londoners to get involved in volunteering for, and connecting with, others in their community, supporting the aims and objectives of the Social Integration Strategy, the Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Strategy and the Health Inequality Strategy; and

• inspiring young people to foster valuable life skills by becoming active citizens in their local area, and bringing communities together in a way that is now more important than ever, building on the recommendations in the Skills Strategy.

4.6. The coordinated support for social enterprise and community business workstream will deliver on the objectives of London Recovery Board’s ‘Building Strong Communities’ mission by:

• creating conditions more conducive to Londoners leading recovery in their own communities through a focus on hyper-local, community-led activities and mission-oriented businesses;

• exploring and promoting community-led solutions, including new models of collaborative investment, asset management and governance of shared resources at the local level; • building local capacity, strengthening community networks and securing community resources; and

• supporting Londoners to build and maintain relationships and be active citizens, and by enhancing the ability of London’s communities to meet future shocks.

4.7. The coordinated support for social enterprise and community business workstream will also deliver on the objectives of the London Recovery Board’s ‘High Streets for All’ mission by:

• supporting research and activities which foster a culture of ideas, collaboration and invention to bring vacant and underused buildings into productive use; • promoting near home working, local employment and supply chains; and

• protecting existing community and cultural spaces and introduce new types of businesses and civic organisations to our town centres.

4.8. The coordinated support for social enterprise and community business workstream will also contribute to delivery of ambitions in the following Mayoral strategies or priorities:

• London Plan – contributing to Good Growth and building strong, inclusive communities by involving citizens directly in the future development of the city;

• Economic Development Strategy – supporting innovation and creating opportunities for all Londoners to develop new skills. Delivering opportunities that help communities to directly share in the benefits created by investment and change; and

• Social Integration Strategy – promoting active citizenship and community cohesion increased engagement in local economic activity that meets local needs. Conflict of interest

4.9. Due consideration has been given to any conflict of interest (that may arise) and none have been found to exist.

5.1. Approval is sought for expenditure of up to £375,000 on the Building Strong Communities mission projects as follows:

5.2. The expenditure will be funded from the 2020/21 ‘Recovery Fund’ (established by MD2666) and allocated to the Team London budget, within the Team London & Community Sport Unit.

5.3. The 2021/22 budget allocation is indicative and subject to the GLA budget setting process.

6.1. The foregoing sections of this report indicate that the decisions requested of the Mayor concern the exercise of the GLA’s general powers, falling within the GLA’s statutory powers to do such things considered to further or which are facilitative of, conducive or incidental to the promotion of social development in Greater London; and in formulating the proposals in respect of which a decision is sought officers have complied with the Authority’s related statutory duties to:
6.1.1. pay due regard to the principle that there should be equality of opportunity for all people;
6.1.2. consider how the proposals will promote the improvement of health of persons, health inequalities between persons and to contribute towards the achievement of sustainable development in the United Kingdom; and
6.1.3. consult with appropriate bodies.

6.2. The Mayor may delegate authority to GLA officers to exercise the powers of the GLA as proposed, pursuant to section 38 of the Greater London Authority Act 1999, should he so wish.

6.3. In taking the decisions requested, the Mayor must have due regard to the Public Sector Equality Duty – namely the need to eliminate discrimination, harassment, victimisation and any other conduct prohibited by the Equality Act 2010 and to advance equality of opportunity and foster good relations between persons who share a relevant protected characteristic (race, disability, gender, age, sexual orientation, religion or belief, pregnancy and maternity and gender reassignment) and persons who do not share it (section 149 of the Equality Act 2010). To this end, the Mayor should have particular regard to Section 3 (above) of this Mayoral decision form.

6.4. Should the Mayor be minded to make the decisions sought officers should ensure to the extent that the expenditure proposed concerns the:
6.4.1 purchase of works, goods or services, they are procured in accordance with the GLA Contracts & Funding Code, engaging with TfL Procurement to develop and follow an agreed procurement strategy and appropriate contracts are entered into and executed by the GLA and contractors before the commencement of the works, goods or services required; and
6.4.2 provision of grant funding and not payment for works, goods or services, the funding is distributed fairly, transparently, in accordance with the GLA’s equality policy, State Aid rules and in a manner which affords value for money in accordance with the GLA Contracts and Funding Code and appropriate funding agreements are entered in to and executed by the GLA and the recipient before any commitment to funding is made.

Mutual aid and volunteering work

Timeline for supporting social enterprise and community business sector

Timeline for Mayor of London Volunteering Awards