What we can learn from Big Local and public service innovation in Liverpool City Region.
How can long-term, resident-led funding reshape local systems, strengthen relationships and lead to more impactful outcomes for communities?
This opening session in the Big Local North West Learning Programme will explore how community-led approaches can drive meaningful systems change. Drawing on learning from Big Local, we’ll look at what happens when residents are placed at the centre of decision-making and delivery, and how this can unlock innovation when supported by collaborative, long-term funding and cross-sector partnerships.
Co-hosted with the VS6 Partnership and with speakers from Local Trust, Groundwork CLM and a Big Local partnership, the session will connect Big Local learning with VS6’s work on public service reform, courageous commissioning and community-empowered funding. Together, we’ll examine how commissioners and funders can move towards approaches rooted in trust, shared leadership and local expertise.
This session sets the scene for the wider learning series, introducing Big Local as a nationally significant, resident-led programme and asking a critical question for funders, commissioners and partners alike: how do we turn ambitions for community power into reality? We’ll explore what really happened over more than a decade of neighbourhood-led change—what worked, what didn’t, and what funders and civil society can take forward into the future.
We are encouraging funders, commissioners, VCFSE leaders, infrastructure bodies and anyone interested in resident‑led systems change to attend.
United Kingdom