{"id":10479,"date":"2026-04-09T17:04:06","date_gmt":"2026-04-09T17:04:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/10479\/"},"modified":"2026-04-09T17:04:06","modified_gmt":"2026-04-09T17:04:06","slug":"holding-it-together-can-the-government-deliver-on-community-cohesion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/10479\/","title":{"rendered":"Holding it together: Can the government deliver on community cohesion?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The\u202fgovernment\u2019s\u202flong-awaited cohesion\u202faction\u202fplan,\u202fProtecting What Matters<\/a>,\u202fmarks a genuine\u202fstep\u202fforward – clarifying the role of the state in promoting community resilience.<\/p>\n

Housing secretary Steve Reed has framed it as a blueprint for a \u201cmore confident, cohesive and resilient United Kingdom\u201d. It brings together commitments\u202fsuch as Pride in Place, tackling hate and extremism, integration and asylum reform into a more joined up agenda.\u202fWhile the plan is welcome, questions remain about whether or not it is sufficiently equipped to deliver. This blog examines how far these commitments are likely to result in meaningful change, and where key challenges lie.\u00a0<\/p>\n

1. Pride in Place<\/p>\n

Foregrounded in the action plan is the\u202fextension of the\u202fPride in Place<\/a>\u202fprogramme,\u202fwhich provides \u00a320 million to selected communities over a 10-year period, with the first rounds of allocation based primarily on indices of deprivation. It aims to give power to local people to shape their neighbourhoods,\u202fbringing\u202ftogether residents, civic\u202factors\u202fand MPs. The initiative is one that the government is holding in high esteem as a prime example of place-based policymaking done well. IPPR North\u2019s latest report<\/a> praises the programme for building civic capacity, but notes that a more hyperlocal agenda is needed for it to be a success. \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The 40 newly announced areas set to receive Pride in Place funding were selected using a revised allocation method<\/a>, with funding now targeted according to measures of social cohesion. As a result, this new round of funding will be directed towards places identified as among the least cohesive in the country. \u00a0However, all the funding is allocated at a Middle Layer Super Output Areas (MSOA) level – a statistical area used to group neighbourhoods for data and planning purposes – and this raises an important tension. Cohesion-related issues rarely align neatly with such geographical boundaries. Protests, riots, or other expressions of division often involve people drawn from surrounding neighbourhoods (who may live only a few miles away but fall outside the designated MSOA). This place-based mismatch means that investment in regenerating one neighbourhood could struggle to address the wider, cross-boundary dynamics that are driving unrest.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Moreover, despite featuring prominently in the action plan, Pride in Place is not solely a cohesion-focused strategy \u2013 it is a distinct, place-based programme with a wide set of objectives. Although\u202fcohesion is one of those objectives, it also carries broader goals around regeneration, improving social infrastructure, and creating thriving high streets. All of which\u202fcan support community cohesion, but because of the breadth and its targeting of specific MSOAs, it is unlikely to be sufficient on its own as the main vehicle for addressing community tensions across the country.<\/p>\n

2. Tackling hate & extremism<\/p>\n

New crisis management methods\u202ffor tackling hate and extremism are heavily emphasised in the action plan. One example is the cross-government Cohesion Support and Interventions Function (CSIF), which intends to support to councils and communities dealing with\u202fescalating\u202ftension or unrest by bringing together local leaders with a wider pool of regional and national based experts and practitioners to \u201cdisrupt radicalising or dangerous actors\u201d. This is a welcome attempt to bring practitioner expertise into crisis response, but local leaders are often best placed to understand local dynamics. Those running the CSIF should ensure that locally grounded expertise is not sidelined but placed at the forefront of decision-making. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Crisis\u202fmanagement is important, especially if we are to prevent the riots seen in the summer of 2024 from reoccurring. However, it is reasonable to question whether the current balance between spending on extremism response and investment in longer term cohesion and prevention is right. IPPR\u2019s scrutiny of government responses to the 2024 riots<\/a> pointed out that preventing extremism is not just about investing in enforcement. More investment\u202fis needed\u202fin longer term\u202fsolutions\u202fthat stop prejudicial attitudes from developing in the first place, such as programmes that create regular, meaningful contact between different groups. As the plan develops, it will be important to ensure that sufficient practical weight is given to prevention, alongside the short-term responses needed once tensions have already emerged.<\/p>\n

This imbalance is illustrated by the Common Ground Resilience Fund, established to support local authorities and grassroots organisations in running practical\u202finterventions that bring people from different neighbourhoods and backgrounds together \u2013 exactly the kind of initiatives that challenge prejudice and promote understanding over time.\u202fYet the fund is worth up to \u00a35 million for 2026\/27: a welcome increase on previous rounds, but still relatively modest in the context of the plan as a whole. This may make it harder to sustain the efforts of local authorities and grassroot organisations, and could make it more challenging for the plan to realise its long-term social cohesion ambitions.<\/p>\n

3. The missing piece: asylum & immigration reform<\/p>\n

The\u202fplan explicitly acknowledges the role\u202fthat asylum accommodation\u202fcan play as a \u201clightning\u202frod for community tensions\u201d.\u202fThis signals a\u202fgrowing recognition\u202fthat cohesion, integration and policies on immigration and asylum are interconnected, and should be managed as such.\u202fHaving said that, no matter how\u202feffectively\u202fthe plan is implemented, a serious inconsistency\u202fremains\u202f- specifically when looked at alongside recent Home Office policies. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Just a few days before the plan\u2019s release, the home secretary announced that\u202fthe baseline for settlement in the UK will increase from five to 10 years and\u202frefugee status will become temporary \u2013 moves\u202fthat\u202fare\u202flikely to make it much harder for hundreds of thousands of people to build a life in the UK<\/a>.\u202fIt\u2019s\u202fhard to balance that with\u202fthe\u202fassertion<\/a> that \u201cmillions of families will feel a stronger sense of community, unity and national pride\u201d. \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

What\u2019s\u202fmore, millions of pounds per day is still spent on asylum accommodation which is unfit for purpose. Despite\u202frisk and cost\u202fconcerns\u202ffrom the NAO<\/a>\u202fover the\u202fmove away from hotels towards\u202flarge-scale contingency accommodation, the government has continued to rely on this model and has renewed the use of military sites including in Pride in Place funded areas like Bournemouth and Medway.\u202fLarge-scale military sites flare tensions\u202fand are highly contested by locals, which risks derailing Pride in Place\u2019s core aims of building stronger communities.<\/p>\n

The drive for social cohesion among communities must be tied in with immigration and asylum reform.\u202fAlthough ending the use of asylum hotels is mentioned as a\u202fwhole-government\u202faim within the plan\u202ffor money-saving purposes, IPPR recommends bolder steps\u202fto boost\u202fcohesion. This should include decentralising asylum\u202faccommodation and moving towards a community-based model, in which regional and local authorities have a meaningful stake and decisions are made closer to the communities they affect.<\/p>\n

On top of this,\u202fwe recommend reinstating the\u202fMigration Impact Fund<\/a>.\u202fFirst introduced in\u202f2009, it was designed to\u202fassist\u202flocal communities manage the pressures of rapid population change linked to migration, for example by increasing service capacity, expanding ESOL provision and supporting local integration activity. Reintroducing this fund would give local areas the\u202fmoney\u202fthey need to invest in services and community initiatives that they need, with dedicated cohesion programmes such as the Common Ground Resilience Fund and wider neighbourhood renewal schemes like Pride in Place then playing a more targeted and complementary role. \u00a0<\/p>\n

The government’s cohesion action plan\u202fis a strong and welcome starting point.\u202fYet\u202fchanges to the\u202fasylum\u202fand\u202fimmigration\u202fsystem\u202fwill undermine a lot of\u202fits efforts. \u00a0If the home secretary\u2019s reforms are carried through, people coming here will continue to struggle to create a stable and fulfilling life in the UK. \u00a0To deliver the confident communities that Steve Reed is striving\u202ffor,\u202fProtecting What Matters\u202fmust be implemented in tandem with an immigration policy which upholds dignity and supports integration. \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The\u202fgovernment\u2019s\u202flong-awaited cohesion\u202faction\u202fplan,\u202fProtecting What Matters,\u202fmarks a genuine\u202fstep\u202fforward – clarifying the role of the state in promoting community resilience. Housing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10480,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[2010,2011,1188,5,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-10479","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uk","8":"tag-policy","9":"tag-public-policy","10":"tag-research","11":"tag-uk","12":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@UnitedKingdom\/116375837892878195","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10479","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10479"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10479\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10480"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10479"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10479"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10479"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}