Resetting the relationship between community organisations & the government- lessons from MCA

Resetting the relationship between community organisations and the government: lessons from Mobilising Community Assets To Tackle health Inequalities Programme

In October 2024, Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced a “fundamental reset” in the relationship between the government and civil society. He introduced plans for a new ‘Civil Society Covenant’ to signal a new beginning in this partnership to tackle some of society’s biggest challenges.

Starmer emphasized that this reset would allow the government to leverage the voluntary, community, and social enterprise (VCSE) sector’s “dynamism, innovation, and trusted reach” to “boost growth and deliver better outcomes for communities.”

Alongside the announcement, the government launched a Covenant framework outlining its vision, scope, and key principles for the renewed relationship. The framework is built on four core principles: recognition, partnership, participation, and transparency.

Over the autumn of 2024, there was a period of consultation about what the Covenant should contain. The Mobilising Community Assets programme submitted a response to the consultation, drawing upon evidence from the 40 projects funded through the programme. In the response, we focussed on how strong relationships and equitable partnerships between systems and civil society can support community organisations to thrive, and to address pressing societal challenges, particularly health inequalities.

The government consultation will conclude with the publication of a final Covenant, expected in Spring 2025.

This blog provides a summary of our response to the Civil Society Covenant consultation. You can read our full response including short case studies from the Mobilising Community Assets projects here >>

Reframing the Principles: The Case for Equity

The four principles outlined in the Covenant—recognition, partnership, participation, and transparency— form a solid foundation. However, based on the findings from the Mobilising Community Assets programme, we argue that equity should also be included. For community-based organisations engaging with systems, balance of power has been shown to be a barrier to successful partnership. This can manifest in priority setting and decision-making, service design, and in the complex commissioning and contracting processes required of community-based organisations. Levelling hierarchies, involving community and lived experience expertise at all stages of the decision-making process and empowering and providing appropriate infrastructure for community-based organisations to respond appropriately to local need can be the most effective approach to addressing wicked problems such as health inequalities.

Building Effective Partnerships: What Works?

Research from the 40 Mobilising Community Assets projects identifies several key enablers of successful partnerships. Firstly, time and trust are essential. Establishing a shared language and understanding between sectors requires time and resource and a relationship-building phase must be prioritised in funding and commissioning processes.

Shifting power towards community-led decision-making is also critical. Community-based organisations work at hyper-local levels, with strong community ties and understanding of local contexts. Shifting decision-making to communities leads to more effective, sustainable solutions to problems. Devolution, and infrastructure to support community organisations at the combined and local authority levels, can help to redress this imbalance, ensuring that solutions are designed and delivered by those closest to the issues at hand.

Flexibility and agility are key. Community organisations excel in innovating and adapting to emerging challenges, but layers of bureaucracy in government systems can stifle this responsiveness. To enable effective collaboration, funding and partnership models must build in flexibility, providing organisations with the security and autonomy they need to innovate. Sustainable, long-term investment is crucial—not only to build trust in authority but also to allow community organisations to focus on service delivery and innovation rather than securing funding.

Finally, collaboration must be promoted over competition. Current funding structures often pit organisations against one another, undermining collective efforts to tackle shared challenges. Encouraging collaboration instead increases capacity, reduces duplication, and enhances efficiency.

Overcoming Barriers to Meaningful Partnership

Despite the potential for strong partnerships, several barriers continue to hinder collaboration between government and civil society. One of the most significant challenges is the short-term, inconsistent nature of funding, which prevents long-term planning and forces community organisations to divert energy away from service delivery towards securing financial sustainability. More supporting infrastructure from government for smaller organisations who struggle with navigating complex commissioning and funding processes could remove some of these barriers.

Another key issue is the challenge of evidencing impact. Community-led approaches are holistic and often yield long-term benefits that are not immediately measurable. Government reporting requirements can be overly burdensome, and smaller organisations may lack the capacity to conduct robust impact assessments. Establishing a more consistent, proportionate approach to impact measurement would help address these challenges.

Moreover, the most deprived areas often have limited social infrastructure or community organisations. Sustained investment in community assets in the communities that need them most is essential to enable community organisations to address societal challenges and tackle inequalities.

Turning the Covenant into Action

For the Civil Society Covenant to have real impact, it must be more than a statement of intent. A cross-government, whole-system approach is required to ensure civil society is recognised as a vital partner in tackling major societal challenges such as health inequalities. All government departments must recognise the levers they hold to support civil society and work collaboratively to unlock its potential.

Empowering communities by devolving decision-making is another crucial step. Public services should provide the necessary infrastructure and support for locally led initiatives to thrive. And the Covenant must be designed and implemented with direct input from those it aims to support, embedding lived experience and community expertise at all stages.

Additionally, HM Treasury must recognise the value of civil society, and develop approaches that incorporate the long-term, societal return on investment. This will involve methodologies that look beyond immediate cost-savings and GDP and consider equitable, sustainable growth and longer-term impacts.

Harnessing the Innovation of Civil Society

The success of the Covenant will depend on how well it leverages the innovation and expertise within civil society. One way to achieve this is by embedding lived experience into policy design and decision-making. Genuine engagement means removing practical barriers to participation, such as transport costs and financial constraints, and fostering inclusive spaces where community voices are truly valued.

Addressing systemic barriers within the benefits system is also crucial. Currently, many individuals with lived experience are unable to take on paid roles in civil society due to restrictive welfare policies. Reforming these policies would enable more people to contribute their expertise and drive change in their communities.

Integrating community-based organisations more effectively into wider systems—such as health and social care—would help to bridge gaps in service provision and reach marginalised groups. This requires investment in supportive infrastructure, moving away from short-term funding cycles towards sustainable models that provide stability and room for growth. Establishing such infrastructure will help to meet local priority targets and contribute to wider system priorities, such as the Integrated Care System (ICS) duties to improve population health outcomes.

Further research and evidence-building will also be essential in demonstrating the impact of civil society. Programmes like Mobilising Community Assets, which bring together academics, community leaders, health systems, and local government, offer valuable insights into effective collaboration. Increasing direct funding for community organisations from public research funders (e.g. UKRI) will help strengthen their capacity to innovate and evaluate their work.

Making the new relationship a reality in a challenging economic context

In the current economic context, strengthening the relationship between government and civil society requires a long-term perspective. Community-led initiatives, while relatively low-cost, deliver high social returns on investment. To fully harness their impact, a cross-government approach is essential—one that streamlines funding models and simplifies interactions with government systems. Additionally, further research to develop robust methodologies and standardised approaches to capture the value and impact of civil society is needed. This should be developed with HM Treasury, to ensure the full value of civil society is captured in all policymaking decisions.

Looking Ahead

The Civil Society Covenant presents an opportunity to reshape the relationship between government and civil society, ensuring that community organisations have the support and resources they need to drive meaningful change in their communities. The Mobilising Community Assets response to the consultation highlights the importance of equity, sustainable funding, and genuine partnership in achieving this vision. For the Covenant to have real impact, it is essential that there is a cross-government commitment to turning these principles into tangible action, with the aim of creating lasting and effective partnerships with civil society.

Written by the Mobilising Community Assets To Tackle health Inequalities Programme Team

Image credit: from the ReCITE project, LSTM. Photographer: Alexjandra Cardona-Mayorga