Empowering communities through the English Devolution Bill

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In this article, Locality explains the We’re Right Here campaign, which advocates for fostering community power through the English Devolution Bill. It highlights the need for meaningful community involvement in decision-making and proposes a ‘Community Right to Shape Public Services’, alongside new Community Covenants, to strengthen local governance and enhance public service outcomes.

The We’re Right Here campaign is a national movement for community power, spanning places and communities across the country and the political spectrum. We believe that real change starts at the local level, and that the English Devolution Bill presents a historic opportunity to transform the way we make decisions as a nation.

Local authorities know better than anyone that our communities are brimming with ideas, skills, passion, and long-term commitment. However, our deeply centralised system of governance often prevents this potential from being unleashed. The consequences are stark: communities feeling disconnected from decision-making, increasing inequalities, and growing distrust in institutions. It is no surprise then that, recent polling by the We’re Right Here campaign found that 84% of UK adults say they have ‘not much or no’ say over key decisions affecting their local community.

The English Devolution Bill offers a chance to tackle these issues head-on and deliver the kind of locally driven change that has so often been promised but never truly realised. It’s accompanying White Paper sets out a vision for devolution across three levels: strategic decision-making to drive growth, led by combined authorities; frontline service delivery, led by local authorities; and hyper-local action, led by communities.

While the first two tiers are well defined, the third falls short of detailing how this crucial tier of community-led action will be meaningfully supported and strengthened. For local government, this gap represents a crucial moment to step up and forge deeper partnerships with communities – ensuring that local decisions are not just made for people, but with them, shaped by those who know their areas best.

A Community Right to Shape Public Services

Many of the important decisions affecting our places relate to public services, from housing and health to social care and infrastructure. There is strong evidence that when communities have a say in shaping these services, they not only become more effective but also help prevent future problems from emerging.

Yet, We’re Right Here’s recent polling found that most (86%) people in the UK feel they have little to no influence over local public services. And those who do are disproportionately likely to have the time and financial resources to get involved. That is why our campaign is calling for a new Community Right to Shape Public Services – a right that would ensure all voices can contribute to better public service outcomes.

Existing mechanisms, such as the Community Right to Challenge introduced in the 2011 Localism Act, have been ineffective. That right often creates an oppositional relationship between communities and councils rather than encouraging collaboration. Moreover, where councils are open to community involvement, the Right to Challenge is redundant. Which is why it is the least used of all the community rights.

The English Devolution Bill provides an opportunity to replace this Right with a more empowering model. The Community Right to Shape Public Services would allow community organisations and service user groups to trigger a joint review of a local service. The local authority – or other relevant public body – would then be required to undertake this review collaboratively, involving local residents, service users, and (if outsourced) service providers.

This would open the door for genuine co-design of services, with the possibility of commissioning exercises, insourcing, or community-led delivery partnerships emerging from the process. By embedding communities into the heart of public service design, we can create services that are more responsive, effective, and trusted.

Community Covenants: a new model for neighbourhood governance

While stronger community rights are a vital step towards community power, we also need formal structures to ensure local decision-making is embedded and sustained over time. The Commission on the Future of Localism has highlighted that institutionalising community power is key to making it stick.

Currently, the only statutory form of neighbourhood governance is the parish and town council system. While these bodies play a crucial role in many areas, they are not always the best fit for every community. In some cases, local parishes suffer from low participation, entrenched hierarchies, and limited accountability. Moreover, in urban areas where parish councils are less common, there is often strong cultural resistance to their imposition. It is unsurprising that We’re Right Here polling found only 19% of the UK believe creating new town and parish councils will empower communities, in contrast 57% think the government can empower communities by involving existing community organisations in local decision making.

This is why, We’re Right Here is calling for the introduction of Community Covenants – a new model of partnership between councils and local people. These agreements would provide recognised neighbourhood-level organisations such as community anchor organisations a formal role in shaping local decision-making, without requiring the creation of new statutory bodies.

Urban areas, in particular, have an abundance of dynamic community anchor organisations – as demonstrated by Locality’s membership network. These organisations are deeply embedded in their communities, providing essential services and acting as a voice for local people. By formalising their role in local governance through Community Covenants, councils can unlock the full potential of these groups as partners in decision-making.

New forms of neighbourhood governance are already beginning to emerge in some areas — from Neighbourhood Forums to Local Area Committees. And in Market Drayton, this has gone even further as Shropshire Council is piloting a Community Covenant with one of our Campaign Leaders, Charlotte Hollins – who manages the UK’s first community-owned farm – and the wider community.

They are currently shaping a community and family hub, and early results suggest that when local people are involved in decisions, they feel more invested in the outcomes, leading to better services.

However, to truly reap the benefits of community power across the country, particularly in areas with lower social capital or where councils are already grappling with limited capacity, we need a clear commitment from the government. That means a strong signal in the form of legislation with clearly defined powers, responsibilities and long-term support for these structures to be established and maintained so that every community is truly empowered to shape their places and futures.

A moment for local government to lead

Local authorities have a crucial role to play in this new era of community power. The English Devolution Bill represents an opportunity not just to pass down power within the public sector but to genuinely open up decision-making to the communities themselves. By embracing proposals like the Community Right to Shape Public Services and Community Covenants, councils can collaborate with community organisations to pool their resources toward common goals, shape more efficient and cost-effective public services, and ultimately build stronger, fairer, and more resilient communities.

For too long, community involvement has been treated as an afterthought in the devolution agenda. Now is the time to change that. Local authorities and community organisations must work together to seize this moment and create a system where power truly sits with the people it affects most.