Building community cohesion requires a long-term strategic approach
While the emergency caused by the extremist and racist far right violent disorder over the summer has receded from the media headlines, the impact continues to be felt locally. It will take time for our communities to recover from the fear and distress caused, and even more time to address the longer-term underlying issues.
The LGA continues to offer support to councils as they bring their communities together. Our staff are embedded within a number of local authorities, particularly Sefton Council, home to Southport, where the horrendous stabbings of seven-year-old Elsie Dot Stancombe, Alice Dasilva Aguiar, aged nine, and six-year-old Bebe King took place on 29 July. The council is taking great care to support the families of the three girls and the other victims wounded, as well as the wider local community.
The LGA is also developing consensus on the ways in which government can work with the sector to support recovery in the short and long term, and internally carrying out a rapid review of how we responded to events in support of our member councils.
Thank you to the 200 council leaders, chief executives, and directors from adults’, children’s and place-based services who attended our series of webinars following the unrest, and who continue to share their experience with the sector.
Themes across the three workshops – including one with Baroness Taylor of Stevenage, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government – included partnership working, communications, funding, cohesion, and building cross-party and political unity.
We have been inspired by the powerful insight from councils as they begin to recover from the disorder – albeit the language of ‘recovery’ feels difficult, as it implies a ‘quick fix’, when we know that addressing the root causes requires an overhaul of policies, practice, investment, and so much more. It is critical that we act on the longer-term issues of rebuilding community cohesion and countering extremism and disinformation.
Adequate government funding for these initiatives is essential, particularly in the most disadvantaged areas, where historical factors led to violence. Building community cohesion requires a long-term strategic approach, and councils have struggled to fund preventative measures that might make a real difference amid ongoing funding pressures.
We also need to see greater investment in – and funding of diversionary activities for – young people, who, in some of the summer’s incidents, appeared to be encouraged by older or non-local agitators.
In support of this work, the LGA has brought forward the publication of a new guide for councillors and officers on supporting youth in low-income neighbourhoods to stay active through sport, by working better with ‘locally trusted organisations’ – mainly hyper-local community organisations.
The many instances of councils and communities coming together to support each other and work together in the aftermath of the violence have provided hope. It is essential to remember that the extremists who seek to divide our communities are a tiny, unrepresentative minority.
Councils know their local places best, and the Government and other agencies need to ensure they make the most of local government intelligence, experience and expertise.
The LGA continues to support councils as they look to learn from the summer’s horrendous events, and as they seek to rebuild trust and confidence in communities.