Final panel what should we do now - an action plan for delivery
Sulafa Abushal from Greater Manchester provided us with a power example from Manchester as to how an LRF can act to driver on national ambitions and local need. Using the GM strategy as the guiding purpose but acting with intent at the local level to understand local need, facilitate and bridge connections, and match needs to capabilities through co-designed target projects to create meaningful change that supports the local community
David Powell gave us an overview of east coast flooding and how this catalysed the partnership to work collectively under a shared purpose. This facilitated cognitive diversity to achieve novel problem solving that enabled the identification of previously unknown at risk communities
Colin Payne outlined how cabinet office and central government want to facilitate sector-led, ground-up solutions and interventions and will continue to enable this through the stronger LRFs programme encouraging as many LRFs submit expressions of interest to for the pilot programme.
The discussion moved to key learning as we looked to go forwards:
1) the need for a co-developed strategy to ensure buy-in and sustained participation (shared purpose)
(2) the need to act with focused and targeted intent to make the problem manageable. As Duncan Shaw rightly explained the majority of our local communities have self-agency, but there is a small proportion that do not. This is where we can collectively work with purpose and intent to affect meaningful change
(3) understanding what exists already, where the gaps are and how to facilitate opportunities to and match needs and capabilities always focused on the end user - our communities
(4) Moving away from traditional approaches towards a more holistic Community development approach and embedding this into all aspects of work and activities
(5) a need to look beyond, research other approaches internationally and across disciplines to see what’s transferable, replicable or adaptable
- The discussion moved around the room to discussing what Individual agencies are looking to do next (VCS Emergencies Partnership British Red Cross and others)
Concluding the session, key actions for all:
NCSR perspective we have a roadmap to August 2023, and this gives us a strong foundation to continue. Personally and I’m sure everyone in the room would agree the NCSR has brought a huge amount of value to the development of this nation shot towards whole of society resilience. I hope to see it continue to go from strength to strength well beyond August. But it can only do that with sustainable investment
As an action point, I would encourage people to first invest in the NCSR, and continue to engage through the NCSR platform in this national conversation, knowledge sharing, evidence base development and collective problem solving.