Sharing your views on Community Rights

In August, we surveyed the community groups we support to ask about how they are using the Government’s Community Rights.

We had a fantastic response with over 470 organisations sharing their views, experiences and opinions of the scheme. Thank you to everyone who responded.

This research informed our consultation response to the Communities and Local Government Select Committee‘s inquiry into Community Rights.

Based on feedback, we identified six reasons many local community groups are not taking up the rights:

1. Lack of awareness

2. Lack of capacity, confidence and skills

3. Lack of understanding of the rights

4. Concerns over risk, liability or cost

5. Perceived complexity of the process

6. Political or ideological barriers

These responses led CDF to recommend the following four key recommendations to improve uptake of the rights:

1. Targeted promotion to groups receiving grant funding for other projects

2. Creating a public area for feedback

3. A matching scheme to link up small and large community organisations

4. Supporting and up-skilling small community organisations

You can view our response here and find out more about the inquiry on parliament.uk.