Community Power Forum – Summary Report

Community Power Forums (CPF) bring together community members and leaders to collaborate in a new strength-based approach to community development. This article summarises background to the project and the journey so far.

Background of the Community Power Forum  



The original CPF meetings were initiated and coordinated by Tom Wiseman and Jane Dudley from the Manchester City Council Neighbourhood Team, as part of the post-COVID recovery strategy. The primary objectives were to reconnect statutory and neighbourhood partners, rebuild relationships, and foster new collaborative opportunities. 


A key collaboration developed with a parallel initiative already in progress in Clayton and Openshaw, led by Angela Beacon (MLCO) and Adrian Ball (Manchester Settlement). 


Today the CPN covers: 


  • Ancoats & Beswick 
  • Clayton, and Openshaw 
  • Ardwick 
  • Gorton & Abbey Hey 
  • Levenshulme & Longsight 

From September 2024 to February 2025, Manchester Settlement led the initiative, providing clear articulation of the principles of community power and coordinating the delivery of three Community Power Forum events. Beginning in March 2025, Healthy Me Healthy Communities CIC (HMHC) will take over the leadership of this work, as outlined in the sections below. 


A steering group oversees the direction, delivery and securing resources for the CPF. 

Principles

The core principles reflect similar policy and approaches including: 


  • Engagement and participation 
  • Equality 
  • Focus on community need 
  • Multi-sector collaborative working 

 

Specifically, the Community Power Forum: 


  • Learns from various previous structures, plus emergent practice from other power sharing projects. 
  • It seeks to work with and support other policy areas and programmes as listed below. 
  • It aims to go beyond just information sharing and seeks a much stronger role for community organisations in being part of the whole system and place-based approaches to reducing inequalities and improving lives. 
  • It adopts a built person and community centred approaches. 
  • Developing a community power space for facilitating learning, exploring existing structures and creating new opportunities for positive change. 
  • The work starts from an expectation that statutory partners recognised that health and well-being is created in communities and those communities are well placed to lead agendas for change. 
  • The Forum will collectively identify local priorities and ambitions to develop and use this approach to demonstrate effectiveness and as a tool for shifting power. 
  • With the potential to act as an umbrella for other community led activities. 

Links to policy 


Reflecting the principles of working with existing structures and developing local action, the CPF has the potential to develop and support existing policy areas including: 

 

National: 

Civil Society Covenant Framework launch - GOV.UK 


The 4 high level principles


Recognition:

To ensure a strong and independent civil society


Partnership:

To ensure effective service delivery and policy making, and shared learning of best practices


Participation:

To ensure people and communities can be heard and make a difference.


Transparency:

To ensure civil society and government have the information needed to best serve people and communities


Manchester: 


Recent work


Led by Manchester Settlement and supported by Angels for Hope, 3 events have been delivered: 


  • 14th November 2024: Focusing on strengths in our neighbourhood and how we strengthen what is already good. 
  • 16th January 2025: Looking at the challenges our neighbourhoods face and the roots of those challenges. How we prevent roots and provide support now. 
  • 13th February 2025: Co-creating neighbourhood actions based on local priorities. 

 

In response to event 3, Gorton & Abbey Hey partners are facilitating a workshop for food-aid providers to explore current policy, thinking and challenges around food security. 

 

The CPF events have the following objectives: 


  • Gather community leaders and members from the statutory and VCSFE sector. 
  • Create space for equal voice to explore issues and opportunities relating to the event themes. 
  • Support community action and change adding insight and value to existing structures and approaches. 

Next steps 


HMHC is the current VCSFE lead organisation, and the steering group have identified the following priorities: 

 

  • Showcasing the work and recognising the learning so far 
  • Develop a branding to give identity to local work 
  • Communications including digital 
  • Networking with similar programmes and policy leads 
  • Identify and develop local priorities 
  • Move into action 

Sign up to our Partner’s Bulletin to keep up to date on our work, partnerships and collaborations.

Sign up