The Government’s Champion for Active Safer Communities has set out her top priorities to help people make a difference to their neighbourhoods. In this report, Baroness Newlove pinpoints the availability of easy to access online information, a new drive for public sector volunteering and the tackling of binge and underage drinking, as key to achieving her goals.
Working across Government and with community groups and activists Baroness Newlove will concentrate firstly on creating an online ‘home’ for community activism. Building on existing online services, these easy to find and simple to use ‘hubs’ will provide community activist ‘starter kits’, together with useful links, contact details, up-to-date funding information and the ability to recruit potential volunteers online.
Next she will focus on creating a thriving ‘civic service’. Encouraging public servants, such as Whitehall civil servants, council staff and the wider public sector, who want to volunteer their skills and time to grass roots activists, providing a range of specialist support from IT, to project management to simply dealing with often complex bureaucracy.
Finally she will seek to improve the prevention and tackling of underage drinking. Much more can be done to help communities get on top of problems tied to drugs and alcohol. She is working with the drinks industry and Government to address problem drinking.
Our vision for safe and active communities can be downloaded here.