Impact assessment

Rapid evidence review of community initiatives

This rapid evidence review of community initiatives, aims to bring together existing definitions and concepts of community infrastructure and social capital.

• From: Department for Culture, Media and Sport and Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport (2017 to 2023)
• Published: 19 May 2022
• Last updated: 20 June 2022
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  1. 20 June 2022

     Additional publications have been added to the bibliography: * South, J., Southby, K., Freeman, C., Bagnall, AM., Pennington, A., Corcoran, R., 2021. Community Wellbeing Case Study Synthesis. What Works Centre for Wellbeing * What Works Centre for Local Economic Growth, 2016. Evidence Review 10, Area Based Initiatives – Enterprise Zones. * What Works Centre for Wellbeing, 2018. Places, Spaces, People and Wellbeing: Full Review. * What Works Centre for Wellbeing and Happy City, 2019. Understanding Thriving Communities. These have led to a number of changes in the evidence ratings across the paper, the majority of these changes have upgraded evidence ratings, either from limited to medium or medium to strong. Changes have been made to the following evidence summaries: * Factors common to community initiatives that deliver effective community infrastructure * Factors relevant to enhance social capital * Delivering community infrastructure * Enhancing social capital * Outcomes

  2. 19 May 2022

     First published.

This was published under the 2019 to 2022 Johnson Conservative government

Documents

Rapid evidence review of community initiatives

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Figure 1: Factors enabling communities to thrive

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Details

DCMS commissioned Frontier Economics to complete a rapid review of community initiatives. This work aims to bring together existing definitions and concepts of community infrastructure and social capital, and set out commonalities and links between these definitions to help the government determine how and when to use different terminology.

The rapid evidence review was undertaken over a period of three months, in total more than 200 items of relevant evidence were identified, with over 100 shortlisted for more detailed review and synthesis.

There is strong evidence that many factors need to work together simultaneously to create positive outcomes. These factors include the six types of capital as identified in the Levelling up white paper: social, financial, human, physical and institutional capital . If one of these factors is missing or inadequate, this can constrain a community’s resilience and economic and social potential.