Tuesday 6 February 2018

Talk for the Communities Prepared National Group

Making the most community resilience

On Tuesday 30-01-18, I did a talk called ‘Making the most of community resilience’, at a meeting of the Communities Prepared National Group (CPNG), which is run by the Civil Contingencies Secretariat in the Cabinet Office. CPNG meets a couple of times a year, and its purpose is to support the development and local implementation of community resilience policy across England by sharing good practice, advising government and identifying opportunities for collaboration. CPNG meetings are attended by representatives of government departments, the devolved administrations and lots of Local Resilience Forums around the country (largely people working on resilience and emergency planning in local authorities).

My talk drew on my work on the Urban Heat project, which was funded by Joseph Rowntree Foundation, as well as more recent thinking. The talk focused on working with the voluntary and community sector (VCS), on planning in particular. Above all, the purpose of my talk was to emphasise the huge untapped potential that resides in the VCS in terms of in-depth grassroots knowledge, as well as capacity and capability. I also focused on the value of seeing collaboration with the VCS as a collaboration of equals, and characterised by mutual learning and empowerment. It is clear that statutory bodies often find it challenging to work with the VCS, so I also highlighted a few issues that I feel are important in terms of process, for instance, making sure that differences in agency, types of expertise and ways of working are accounted for.

Links and contacts:

More about Urban Heat and community resilience here.

More about the government’s approach to community resilience here.

Contact me about community resilience: kevinwburchell@gmail.com 

Contact the Cabinet Office about community resilience: community.resilience@cabinet-office.x.gsi.gov.uk

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