Transcript of David Knott’s keynote speech - will devolution stop at institutions?

The renewal of Gedling

I'm from Nottingham.

I grew up first in Sherwood, then up the steep slopes of Gedling.

Not in Westminster. Not Manchester. One of those places in between that the national debate can sometimes forget.

Perhaps we should call them the Middle-Lands.

But places like these matter just as much.

Gedling was pitland.

As a teenager I'd trudge up the hill to the newsagent, a pound coin in my pocket, and the Lottery numbers memorised.

Feeling very hopeful.

The village around me looked different to how I felt.

A battered and bruised Gedling Colliery…

Black spoil heaps and rusted winders, looming over the hills.

It cast a shadow over our community…

Reminding us what had been lost.

For almost a century, the hum of that colliery set the rhythm.

More than 2,000 people from over 30 countries worked that mine.

It became known as the Pit of Nations as a result.

A community of tough people that toiled together, who did not look, think or sound the same.

But shared a common bond, and pride together, under the earth.

And above ground, a community grew around it: Schools, churches, working men's clubs, pubs, charities…

The ordinary social infrastructure of a place.

So when the pit wheels stopped turning in 1991, it marked the end of much more than an industry.

It removed an institution around which everyday life in Gedling had revolved.

But the community did not disappear - nor the bonds, pride and memory.

It took 25 long years to renew and become Gedling Country Park.

Today the winding gears give way to woodland.

Where friends and families come together.

Where coal wagons once rattled by.

And if I were to trudge up that hill for my Lottery ticket now…

Gedling would look a lot more hopeful than back then.

Now listen - as the head of a public funding body, I could build that story up to a neat punchline that says 'and that's all thanks to National Lottery funding.'

But that would be true only in part…

And dismiss the lesson.

Because much like the miners in the Pit of Nations, many other, different people came together to renew it:

Local businesses, charities, volunteers.

People who gave their time because they shared a common bond - in loving the place they lived - and also because they knew exactly what was lacking, and where the resources needed to go.

And with funding, permission and support from institutions like ours behind them…

They turned the black spoil heaps and rusty winders into the kind of place Gedling needed - and they wanted.

So that story points to the strength of communities coming together.

It also points to the possibility of renewal when government and funding bodies like ours trust people in places and communities like Gedling with power and agency.

That is the argument I want to make today.

Because too much of the UK feels like the colliery after it closed, and before it was renewed.

And we need nationwide renewal. Now.

But it will not come about by Whitehall, or any funding body, just swooping down, providing funding, and thinking 'job done'.

No - it will come by giving communities of all stripes and intentions, who have the knowledge and sense of direction, far greater power and agency over the decisions, services and investment shaping their lives.

And by trusting them, a whole lot more.

Situation - the moment for national renewal

I have to say, I'm pleased with the timing of this argument.

I'd love to say it was planned.

Because the very questions behind this speech have just moved into the centre of national debate.

Where should power sit? Where should money go?

And who should shape the decisions that affect ordinary life?

Recent interventions on renewal and devolution have given those questions the urgency they have long required.

This is cause for optimism.

Because the instinct is right - power works better when it moves closer to people's lives.

And - now - the Government's Call for Evidence on Lottery good cause funding brings the question directly to us:

It will ask how should our funding better serve people and communities now and for the decades ahead?

We welcome that.

More than that, in fact. When it comes to serious reform, we're all in.

We want to answer it and we're ready to:

For 3 decades the Community Fund has put more than £18 billion into communities.

Our teams work in every postcode in the UK.

Nearly 80% of our grants are made through our Awards for All: small grants that go directly into communities and respond to what they ask of us.

We get an idea from a community every 3 minutes, and fund one every 8.

So we come to this moment, and to any question around giving communities more power, with decades of evidence and practice.

As well as ideas, answers - and questions of our own.

Here is the one I want to ask today.

Will devolution stop at institutions?

Because the test of reform is not only where power moves from - it is where power reaches.

A mining village, coastal town, inner-city estate, rural county - or a community formed around illness, identity or shared experience - will not all need the same answer.

And the answers will not all come from newly devolved institutions.

So while the current moment is cause for optimism, and we are ready for the challenge ahead, I want to know now - will power and agency reach all the way into the communities whose knowledge, relationships and leadership, combined with power, make renewal work?

Because if we want to get it right, that is what has to happen.

Problem - treating people as recipients before participants

And the danger is this.

Communities can remain passive recipients of help, rather than active participants, even in a more devolved country.

Power can move from Whitehall to a townhall, a boardroom, or a new public body…

And still leave communities out.

Trusted to hold things together outside, but not trusted enough to be welcomed in.

That is one of the reasons so many people feel frustrated.

Just think about the pressures communities have had to endure. The havoc of the financial crash, years of austerity, the energy crisis, COVID-19, cost of living.

Public services are stretched. Public finances are constricted. Demand is rising.

And trust in institutions is incredibly fragile.

What's more, many of the toughest challenges we face - poor health, loneliness, opportunities for the young, aging, neighbourhood decline - cannot be solved by services alone.

They require relationships, agency, and community capacity before crisis arrives.

Every single one of our grant holders is proof the problem facing us has nothing to do with a lack of community will, or might.

Despite pressure after pressure, people have kept doors open, looked after families, held neighbourhoods together, and found the answers big institutions missed.

But too often, the institution defines the problem.

It designs the response, controls the money, gathers the evidence.

And asks for views once the main choices have been made.

So, the country keeps relying on the strength of communities while giving them too little power over the conditions making that strength necessary.

For us at the Community Fund, that same problem shows up in the funding model.

We have proudly and gladly supported urgent need through repeated crises.

That was right.

A family in crisis cannot wait for a ten-year strategy.

But 999-style emergency relief cannot become the whole operating model.

And often short-term funding asks people to divide connected lives into separate projects: a health problem there, a housing problem here, a youth project somewhere else.

Each project might succeed. Each might meet an immediate need.

But people can still be left expected to cope, without the agency to change what produces that need in the first place.

After 30 years of learning and listening, we now see 2 things clearly:

Our communities are far from broken: anything but.

But - we have mistaken their resilience as an inexhaustible capacity to endure.

That cannot be the settlement for the next phase.

Especially since they have been showing us, all the while, how the renewal we all need works.

Solution 1 - the national change

So, how do we take advantage of the current moment?

How do we make devolution work and turn optimism into a plan?

The next phase needs a more confident arrangement.

One where institutions are far more willing to devolve power - and agency - to our communities.

Institutions, by the way, we desperately need…

Of course we do, it's them who represent, gather and mirror our communities.

But they - us included - must fix bad habits.

And be more trusting.

Which means involving communities before priorities are set. Before budgets are decided. Before polices harden. Before a programme, target or service has defined the problem on their behalf.

This is the leap government, funders, and institutions - those who are so used to making all the decisions themselves - have to make.

At a time where trust is so low, if we don't make rebuilding it our first priority, the changes we make - no matter how good - will barely go anywhere.

Now, in Greater Manchester, we have partnered with local leaders, voluntary organisations and communities to make Live Well possible.

It is support that is fundamentally built around people and relationships, not only around services.

And while the Community Fund's backing helped create the space for that to happen at scale, the real power came from the partnership itself - the people working with public bodies from the start.

That's exactly the kind of institutional behaviour we need: power not stopping with them, but national resources backing local ambition, and communities involved at the outset to shape the answer.

Better decisions are made when local knowledge and experience is treated as integral intelligence.

That's how we rebuild trust, strengthen democracy, create a more preventative and participatory society - and make national renewal happen.

Solution 2 - what the Community Fund proposes to do

To help to do that, The National Lottery Community Fund intends to play a different, bigger role.

And we are going to be much more active, and deliberate, about fixing the problem with our current funding model.

Because the next phase demands us to be much more than a funder and grant-maker.

It asks us to provide long-term support for community capability; to convene, shape and influence work with public bodies, local government, business, philanthropy, universities and civil society, so the full assets of communities and places can be brought to bear.

We know we have more to learn, and we know there is more we can do.

But because of our decades of experience, what we've already learnt, our power and resources, we are now ready to evolve that model.

We're already well under way.

Our strategy is called It Starts with Community.

Its next iteration makes sure it stays with them - in how problems are defined, funding is shaped, evidence is gathered, and how power is shared.

Because everyone agrees prevention is better than the cure.

The harder question is how do we fund the current stock of problems as well as prevention?

Well, our answer is this:

We will continue to meet urgent need, yes, but we will work much harder to give the communities the agency, trust and power to shape what comes next.

Specifically, that means:

Bringing communities in earlier.

Through programmes like You Decide, Have Your Say, and the Health Inequalities Partnership, we are learning how people can identify problems, design responses and decide where money goes.

When I took part in summits on black health inequalities communities were showing us exactly where trust had broken down.

They showed us the solutions that would actually reach people.

Second, we will fund capability and not just activity.

Wherever we make a grant, we will ask ourselves - what immediate need will this meet, but also what will this community become better able to change because of it?

Can this organisation plan beyond the next few months?

Can local leaders shape what happens here?

Can people keep working together long after the funding has ended?

I think of the Welsh House Farm Green Grafters in Birmingham.

On a snowy day, I met Graham, the chairman, who's lived there all his life, and Michael, recovering from long COVID, who had found new confidence through volunteering.

With 3 Awards for All grants, they build gardens and brightened spaces.

But it went further than that: mentoring young people, negotiating bus services with the council, and creating practical solutions to everyday problems.

That is what capability looks like. People becoming better able to change what happens around them.

And that is why the Community Wealth Fund matters. It gives us the change to back more of this kind of work – for longer, in places where people have too often being asked to cope with problems, rather than given he power and resources to shape solutions.

And third, we are going to carry community knowledge into the bigger, national decisions.

The experiences and knowledge of communities of all stripes should frame decisions.

Our job is to connect it to evidence, partners and other institutions.

Look at A Better Start.

Over a decade, it has worked with more than 75,000 families and over 200 partners across the UK.

Its lesson is prevention works best when parents are listened to and services work together with them over the long term and on a national scale.

That is the kind of local learning we need to join together, lift up, and drop into policy.

Which means us bringing more communities, grant holders, universities, funders, public services, businesses and civil society together.

The ask:

That's our plan.

We are going to use our money, evidence and convening power to meet immediate need, build capability, support stewardship and shift power closer to those who understand the problems.

But as with the renewal of Gedling, national renewal will not come about from Community Fund funding alone.

So to government: keep going.

We welcome the instinct to move power away from Westminster.

But make sure that decision-making and planning power travels well beyond institutions and reaches directly into neighbourhoods, networks and civil society.

We will only regain the lost trust in our institutions we need to affect change by being more trusting of them.

And we want to answer your questions. We more than agree - the people's money must go into the heart of communities…

So when it comes to urgent and meaningful reform, we're all in.

We are here to help.

To public bodies and other funders: keep working with organisations that already hold trust in people's lives, and before a crisis arrives.

Fund long-term capability as well as projects with short reporting cycles.

To the academic community, business, evidence gatherers and local government: work with us - we want to let local experiences shape the questions.

And to civil society: keep organising, collaborating and challenging us.

Hold us to the ambitions we have set for ourselves today.

And to everyone: hold onto the pride and responsibility you carry for the people you serve.

This next phase belongs to us all.

Close

To end.

We do not need to fret about our communities breaking, or making them stronger.

They are already there.

In villages and estates.

In neighbourhood groups and local charities.

In the bonds that hold people together when everything around them feels uncertain.

Go back to Gedling Country Park and you see this.

A mural on the cafe wall remembers the Pit of Nations.

The winding gear of the old colliery.

And the flags of the countries whose miners worked there.

A place that hummed with industry now gives something back.

It is a reminder of what remains.

A community of very different people…

Different backgrounds, views, and ideas…

Who are united together by rich and powerful bonds.

Because national renewal begins with recognising, not inventing, community.

Let's work with them.

They know what they need, and want.

They know what they can build.

And they know what they're doing.

Thank you.