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Community participation

On 16 November 2006, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) has today published a report (Community participation - who benefits?) which explores whether policies to involve people in making decisions about their own communities are effective in building strong social networks.

Government has made a significant investment in community participation on the back of evidence suggesting that it builds stronger networks between people who live in the same neighbourhood. However, this report questions the accuracy of this belief and looks at whether community dynamics and relationships can in fact make good governance hard to achieve.

Through detailed case studies in two areas, and a review of other research, the authors:

• investigate the key factors influencing participation in governance;
• argue that community participation tends to be dominated by a small group of people; and
• suggest ways in which formal participation arrangements could more effectively engage with informal every-day social networks.

The full report can be viewed on the JRF website