Communities and neighbourhoods

What is community empowerment

Community Empowerment is about people and government, working together to make life better. It involves more people being able to influence decisions about their communities, and more people taking responsibility for tackling local problems, rather than expecting others to.

The idea is that government can't solve everything by itself, and nor can the community: it's better when we work together.

There are three key ingredients to community empowerment:

Active citizens: people with the motivation, skills and confidence to speak up for their communities and say what improvements are needed.
Strengthened communities: community groups with the capability and resources to bring people together to work out shared solutions.
Partnership with public bodies: public bodies willing and able to work as partners with local people.

The vision for empowering communities was set out by the then Home Secretary, David Blunkett MP, in two key speeches: the Scarman Trust Forum Lecture on 11 December 2004 and the Edith Kahn Memorial Lecture on 11 June 2003 (available to download from the right-hand side of the page).