Local communities are shown to respond best in a crisis

New research led by Professor Lauren Andres, Director of Research at the Bartlett School of Planning and Pro-Vice-Provost Inequalities, UCL Grand Challenges, shows that many of the solutions we need for a fairer food and health system already exist. Communities are already leading of meaningful and impactful initiatives and projects, often on very tight budgets, and hold valuable knowledge about what works. The task now is to share, support and scale up these approaches so they shape mainstream policy and investment.

Produced by the UCL Bartlett School of Planning and the Institute of Development Studies, and published by the UCL Policy Lab, the report examines how community-based and neighbourhood-level responses to food insecurity have pioneered innovative strategies that meet complex needs across food, health and social care. It focuses on local efforts to secure access to food, health services and social support during the COVID-19 pandemic and the cost-of-living crisis, highlighting a rapid testing and learning approach driven by trust place-based knowledge and flexible funding.

Currently food insecurity affects 18% of households with children in the UK, with one in five schools in the UK now providing some form of food assistance to pupils and their families. People in employment are increasingly using food banks, highlighting how low wages and precarious work can lead to financial hardship even when working.

The report calls for food support to be integrated with local health services, social care, public health, schools and local businesses, in order to create more equitable and responsive systems. The report highlights the role of local social infrastructures (i.e. community hubs), where services are co-located with social support, food provision and local enterprises; such hubs are a model for delivering joined-up, place-based responses that reflect what people want and need in their own communities, drawing on examples in Brighton and Hove, London, and Birmingham.

Marc Stears, Director of the UCL Policy Lab and Pro-Provost for Policy Engagement at UCL, said:

Empowering communities to respond to local need is the best way to build resilience in our country. This vital research shows that respecting these small but vital organisations will help crucial in ensuring the UK can weather future crises. It is inspiring to see UCL researchers work on these kinds of projects, partnering with communities to understand their challenges. The evidence in this report helps shine a light on the role of civic society and those small organisations working tirelessly in communities across Britain.”

Krey recommendations include:

• Adopt a systems approach: Tackle food insecurity, health inequality and social exclusion together through prevention-first strategies, with councils, the NHS and voluntary organisations acting as one integrated system.
• Empower local leadership: Community hubs should act as trusted entry points, bringing together health, advice, food and youth services, with young people actively engaged in shaping solutions.
• Put trust at the centre of governance: Shift from central control to trust-based, locally led models with co-decision frameworks.
• Reform funding models: Provide flexible, multi-year funding that covers core costs and supports innovation. The report calls for flexible, trust-based, multi-year grants that provide stability, support innovation and cover core costs, with proportionate requirements so small grassroots organisations can access funding.

However, the report stresses that these efforts cannot substitute for a coherent national food strategy and a welfare system that meets people’s basic needs with dignity. Community action must be recognised, resourced appropriately and connected to wider structural change.

The current appetite for reforms in England, including the devolution agenda, which allows for place-based learning, the NHS Ten-Year Plan and programmes such as the New Towns Programme, provide a major opportunity to recreate the effective synergies seen during the pandemic if they embed trust-based funding and joint commissioning between the NHS, local authorities and Public Health. The report's findings align directly with the Government's Plan for Change, including Places for Growth 2030 and the Plan for Neighbourhoods, and the creation of Neighbourhood Health Centres within the NHS Ten-Year Plan.

Professor Lauren Andres comments:

 “Our research shows that communities already know how to build resilience and to support each other in times of crisis. What they lack is long-term, flexible investment and an ability to be heard when decisions are made.”

“A healthier, fairer food system that benefits people, communities and business will emerge only when we join up policies, empower local action and people, build trust into governance and fund communities to lead.”

Read the full report here.

This report draws on original global research carried out between 2022 and 2024 by the UCL Bartlett School of Planning and the Institute of Development Studies, with Trans-Atlantic Platform funding from the Economic and Social Research Council (UKRI ESRC) and additional support from the ESRC IAA 2023–28 UCL Impact Acceleration Account.

UCL and IDS worked with community groups and with local authority, NHS, academic and voluntary-sector partners in Birmingham, Solihull, Brighton & Hove and the London Borough of Barnet, and collaborated with partners in Brazil, Canada and South Africa to draw comparative insights.