Rapid evidence review of community initiatives - impact assessment

Objectives of this report Levelling up is a core priority for the UK government. The recently published white paper Levelling Up the United Kingdom, defines it as “…giving everyone the opportunity to flourish. It means people everywhere are living longer and more fulfilling lives, and benefitting from sustained rises in living standards and well-being” (HM government, 2022, p1).

To drive towards these aims, several factors need to come together. These include six types of capital, as identified by HM government (2022): physical capital, human capital, financial capital, social capital, intangible capital and institutional capital. Existing evidence suggests that where these forms of capital and wider factors, including community infrastructure (a certain type of physical capital), come together, there can be a virtuous cycle of positive outcomes (HM government, 2022).

A preliminary assessment of the available evidence revealed that the definitions of the particular factors that enable communities to thrive are not consistent across studies, especially in relation to community infrastructure and social capital. There is also much still to be understood about how community initiatives can deliver community infrastructure effectively and enhance social capital.

Government is therefore interested in understanding the state of the current evidence base on these issues and where there are gaps or limitations in what is currently known. To build this understanding, the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), and the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) jointly commissioned this study.

Outcomes Where community initiatives deliver effective community infrastructure and enhance social capital, a variety of different outcomes are likely to follow. Chapter 6 discusses the evidence on these outcomes, grouped into five categories of: - economic outcomes - health outcomes - social outcomes - civic outcomes, and - unintended outcomes from government initiatives.