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Enabling your community to lead

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Communities are often the best placed groups of people to lead changes that can improve their lives.

Whether a geographical community or a community that comes together around a shared issue or identity, those involved will hold hugely valuable insights and experiences.

They will also have skills, strengths, and capabilities. It is part of the council’s role to ensure they have as much agency as possible to be able to mobilise these skills, strengths and capabilities.

Communities can take the lead by:

  • setting the agenda for change – identifying the priorities that most matter to them
  • being directly involved in decisions that will affect their lives – such as when services are open or how their town centre will be regenerated
  • taking the lead on practical action – such as by running a community event or taking on ownership of a local building
  • having direct influence or control over resources – either working alongside the council and other statutory bodies or having delegated authority over certain spending decisions.

A key question for you is how you will work in a community-powered way to enable this.

Changes may be required to your processes or behaviours to enable communities to take the lead role. You may need to relinquish a degree of control and be more comfortable with uncertainty. You may need to build support for your proposed approach internally, encouraging others to understand why you are pursuing a community powered approach and the benefits it will bring.

Helping to remove the barriers that communities may themselves be facing to leading action may also be necessary. It can be difficult to navigate large organisations and complex services. Supporting communities to address this may be needed.

Other times you may need to play a role which helps the council to simply ‘get out of the way’, as this can sometimes be key to unlocking the power and potential residing in all of our communities.

You can read more about examples of enabling community leadership in this case study about commissioning by communities and our case study about tackling tough challenges.


Below are three prompt questions to help you consider how to enhance community power.



Communities are often the best placed groups of people to lead changes that can improve their lives.

Whether a geographical community or a community that comes together around a shared issue or identity, those involved will hold hugely valuable insights and experiences.

They will also have skills, strengths, and capabilities. It is part of the council’s role to ensure they have as much agency as possible to be able to mobilise these skills, strengths and capabilities.

Communities can take the lead by:

  • setting the agenda for change – identifying the priorities that most matter to them
  • being directly involved in decisions that will affect their lives – such as when services are open or how their town centre will be regenerated
  • taking the lead on practical action – such as by running a community event or taking on ownership of a local building
  • having direct influence or control over resources – either working alongside the council and other statutory bodies or having delegated authority over certain spending decisions.

A key question for you is how you will work in a community-powered way to enable this.

Changes may be required to your processes or behaviours to enable communities to take the lead role. You may need to relinquish a degree of control and be more comfortable with uncertainty. You may need to build support for your proposed approach internally, encouraging others to understand why you are pursuing a community powered approach and the benefits it will bring.

Helping to remove the barriers that communities may themselves be facing to leading action may also be necessary. It can be difficult to navigate large organisations and complex services. Supporting communities to address this may be needed.

Other times you may need to play a role which helps the council to simply ‘get out of the way’, as this can sometimes be key to unlocking the power and potential residing in all of our communities.

You can read more about examples of enabling community leadership in this case study about commissioning by communities and our case study about tackling tough challenges.


Below are three prompt questions to help you consider how to enhance community power.


Page last updated: 29 Nov 2023, 10:27 AM