Publications Publications
We produce a wide range of publications from research reports to policy briefings, as well as our members' magazine, Clearway, and a monthly Policy Round-Up. Our Handy Guides provide practical information covering topics such as LSPs, Planning and local government. All our publications are designed to provide accessible and relevant information to help you get to the heart of what matters.
Don't know your Handy Guide from your Briefing? Read our explanation of what our different publications are.
The coalition government has decided to make its Big Society and localism plans a major cornerstone for policy, with numerous proposals coming through which aim to devolve power from central to local government and from local government to communities. But what does this mean for local councillors? What is the place for local representative democracy in a rapidly changing policy environment?
Read our assessment of the Budget and how it affects voluntary and community groups.
Don't be fooled by the scraps from the table, the real damage is already done says Urban Forum Chief Executive, Toby Blume:
Now with details of the programme delivery
updated community organisers Briefing 2011 03
The Coalition Government has committed to training 5,000 independent community organisers over the lifetime of the current Parliament.
Urban Forum linked up with Race Online 2012 to carry out a detailed survey about the use of computers, the internet and social media amongst our members as part of Race Online's challenge to make the UK the first nation in the world where everyone can use the web. In order to achieve this, Race Online are calling for urgent action to inspire, encourage and support millions more people to get online by the end of the Olympic year 2012.
Our aim was to discover and learn how voluntary and community groups use computers, the internet and social media in their organisations. The survey was sent out to all 741 Urban Forum members and gained a response rate of 9%. Such insight will enable Urban Forum to identify and respond to the needs of our members and assess and seek to address the barriers that may prevent them from using such tools effectively. Furthermore, the aim was to explore organisations' aspirations including their future plans for the use of computers and the internet and crucially the resources that could help them realise their aspirations.
The Localism Bill introduces the concept of Neighbourhood Planning: a bottom-up approach to planning for the future of an area led by the community. Communities now have a real opportunity to develop plans and shape proposals for the places they live in. But many questions have been raised: what is a neighbourhood? How do we produce a plan? Who is responsible for preparing them?
Urban Forum, Colin Buchanan and the Young Foundation have produced a crib sheet to provide answer to the most community asked questions.
Urban Forum is particularly interested in advice and information provision, the dissemination of good practice and non-financial barriers for communities in establishing energy projects and this is reflected in the selection of questions we are responding to. We draw upon evidence based on both Urban Forum research published in 2010 which looks at lessons from across Europe in creating successful community and municipal energy projects1 and ongoing work being undertaken in partnership with the Centre for Sustainable Energy on supporting the emergence of strong civic environmental leadership.
The latest edition of our online magazine, Clearway, looks at the issue of Social Finance. 