Building Strong Communities

During the pandemic, community groups, volunteers and civil society organisations (such as not-for-profits) have played a crucial role in supporting Londoners wellbeing, tackling inequalities and enhancing the city’s resilience. There are 120,000 voluntary sector organisations in London. Over 90,000 volunteers from London registered to volunteer via the NHS volunteering scheme and by the end of March 2020, 700 new mutual aid groups had been set up. Read more about the context for this mission.
 
Mission: “All Londoners can play an active role in their communities; making London a more equal and inclusive city post COVID-19.”
 
We’ll need to work together, so that:

• All communities - particularly the most disadvantaged with the greatest health inequalities  - can access support and services  
• London’s civil society is strong and resilient to future shocks
• Public service providers proactively include the voice of older Londoners in future planning of the city and service provision

 
Areas of focus might include:

• Increased opportunities for Londoners to build social connections
• Increase in funding for community led activity
• Focus on services by and for communities facing the greatest health inequalities

 
What do you think of this mission? Is there anything critical to London’s recovery missing from this mission? What does this mean for you personally and your community?  What actions or interventions would have the most impact? How will we know that we’ve succeeded?  Who has a role to play to meet this challenge?  

Thanks everyone for sharing your views and volunteering experience in this discussion on a strong civil society. The policy and recovery teams have been thinking about how they can amend these missions to be more specific and time-bound, but still bold, ambitious and realistic.

Part of making these missions more specific involves acknowledging that we can't do everything through the recovery programme. That doesn’t mean that if something isn’t a mission it isn’t important. City Hall and London Councils will continue to work on areas that aren’t missions but are important to recovery. 

The policy team and recovery team have been reading your comments and are still considering the best way in which to narrow their focus. Do you have views on what would have most impact?

Some of the outcomes that the team would like to achieve include:

• Londoners most disproportionately impacted by COVID-19 can take the lead in recovery. This includes BAME, LGBT, deaf and disabled, women and older people
• The voice of Londoners is better represented in policy making and service design so communities and services can respond accordingly
• Sustainable and collaborative funding models, between sectors, are shaped by the needs and ambitions of Londoners 
• Londoners can play active roles in their communities – working with and in a more resilient, equal and inclusive sector

What do you think of these ideas? What other ideas do you have that might help achieve some of the outcomes set out for this mission? What would have the most impact for you?