Innovation and Enterprise Across the Social Economy in Recovery from COVID-19: Report for the West Midlands Combined Authority

The COVID-19 pandemic has severely impacted the West Midlands from a health and wellbeing, and an economic standpoint.

The region’s civic leaders have responded to this landscape by submitting the £3.2bn “Recharge the West Midlands” investment case to government in June, which outlines a three year plan for recovery, as well as “levelling up the West Midlands: our roadmap to community recovery and prospectus to government” which outlines 41 examples of good practice, 27 shared ambitions for recovery, 29 asks of government and 15 initial areas for future collaboration. Of the asks of government, over £2bn of these were set out in the WMCA Recharge the West Midlands prospectus for transport, affordable housing and skills programmes and these are repeated here. A further £203m is requested for programmes of work directly associated with community recovery on issues such as digital inclusion, radical health prevention and access to green spaces.

The West Midlands has also seen an incredible response from mutual aid, faith and community groups, neighbourhood groups and the social economy and this report focuses on the response and experiences of this broad and diverse sector. Without their contribution to the collective and urgent response to the crisis, both in its initial stages and on into the ‘new normal’, the health and economic situation would have been far worse, and the impact on public finances more severe. The key question guiding our research was: How has civil society and the social economy responded to the crisis and what needs to be taken forward or further developed as we move into a ‘new normal’ way of working?

This report brings together the learning and insight gained from a review of the civil society and social economy response across the West Midlands Combined Authority area, based on engagement with frontline organisations and strategic stakeholders carried out in August-September 2020. We present a set of detailed case studies that highlight innovation, enterprise and flexibility. Our framework draws attention to the diversity and timeliness of the civil society and social economy response, pointing the way to how public agencies, WMCA and their partners can best support the sector in the future.

Key Findings

A standout finding from the research was the importance of rapid collaboration on mutual terms between community-focused civil society and social economy organisations and public agencies. Our interviews and case studies all highlight the urgency and rapidity with which the sector responded in a spirit of ‘getting things done’ was key to providing effective support.

Red tape and formality was suspended, existing partnerships and good relationships were strengthened, power disparities were reduced, and new flexible ways of working were adopted some of which were online. However the case studies consistently highlighted digital divides and in/exclusion, the stark way in which the COVID-19 pandemic highlighted underlying inequalities, and hence the important role for the sector in speaking out.

We briefly summarise the headline findings here, while the full detail is provided in Chapter 6 of the report.

Theme 1: Issues that surfaced in the immediate response to COVID-19:
- Agility and urgency of the response, and the need for flexibility
- Civil society highlighting inequalities and the impact of poverty
- Civil society identifying vulnerable individuals and communities

Theme 2: Adapting services in response to COVID-19:
- Digital inclusion and exclusion
- Tensions between COVID-19 regulations and face to face support
- Wellbeing and mental health in communities and sector workforce
- Design of COVID-19 specific services

Theme 3: Cross-sector, system, and longer-term policy implications
- Multi-organisational collaboration and partnerships
- Funding COVID-19 specific services and redirecting funding
- Locking in the learning: sustaining trust and local knowledge
- The uncertain recovery and anxiety about the future.

The learning from the research underpins a set of key recommendations, which were co-developed with the sector at an online engagement event in September 2020.

Case Studies of innovation and enterprise

The report contains twelve detailed case studies which highlight the urgent and flexible responses, and innovation and learning that emerged in the response to COVID-19. For instance:

Hope Community in Wolverhampton created Lockdown Lunches and Grow Your Own At Home, in the immediate weeks of the crisis, providing hot meals for the elderly, culturally-sensitive food and advice to the area’s ethnically diverse community, as well as a social connection and wellbeing check-in and support.

Holy Trinity Church, Smethwick in Sandwell created the Faithful Friends multi-faith network using social media to provide a space for community engagement. This existing work and strong relationships facilitated rapid mobilisation in response to COVID-19 and excellent partnership working with Sandwell Public Health to share key health messages and support the vulnerable.

The Active Wellbeing Society in Birmingham rapidly built a business plan for a £600,000 contract with Fareshare, with food to be distributed by TAWS and the #BrumTogether partnership. The Birmingham depot reached over 21,000 people every week, reflecting an unprecedented level of coordination between faith, voluntary and community organisations in the city.

Hope for the Community CIC in Coventry delivered its services face to face prior to the pandemic. In March 2020 it rapidly found solutions to help their partners meet the needs of the vulnerable groups they support – working with academic experts to include COVID-19 related resources; training new facilitators and ensuring the H4C technology platform could deliver quality courses.

The detailed case studies can be found in Chapter 5 and we highlight a wide range of innovations that were surfaced in our wider conversations and interviews across the region.

Recommendations

The findings highlight some major challenges for the sector and for public agencies, and thus our recommendations focus on how the WMCA and its partners can harness the learning from this crucial period and are based on the principle of ‘building back better’:

Theme One: The way we work – collaboration and beyond
In order to empower leaders from across civil society and the social economy, we recommend the WMCA play a role in supporting:
- Opportunities for leaders from within civil society and the social economy to meet, discuss and share information in a spirit of collaboration
- Affordable and accessible opportunities for leaders from across civil society and the social economy to further develop their skills

An assumption that the civil society and social economy sector is an equal partner Commissioning frameworks (at a national, regional and local level) that encourage collaboration, rather than drive competition;

Theme Two: The way we deliver in a COVID-19 world
- In recognition of the different but equally valuable contributions of the range of organisations across civil society and the social economy, delivering at different times, to different people, we recommend:
- Creating opportunities for VCSFE groups to build on recent experiences and energy and identify how organisations can continue to work together and support one another
- Investment in community development that builds on the learning from Covid19 - creating more connected communities that are then well placed to respond in future
- Further development and expansion of the citizens panel to ensure voices of those from marginalised groups are included
Building on the 2017 Mayor and Faith Action Plan, to learn the lessons arising from the COVID crisis and the wider voluntary and community sector response
- A regional Digital Inclusion strategy, which draws from the evidence from this research about the complexity of digital inclusion for marginalised communities

Theme three: The way we prepare
- In recognition of the financial impact of the crisis and the creative responses of individual organisations, but also the climate of considerable uncertainty and anxiety facing civil society organisations, we recommend:
- Introducing a Regional Stabilisation Fund for civil society and the social economy to support recovery and ensure work can continue
- WMCA work with the sector to facilitate shared learning, training and capacity building amongst organisations, and develop a strategic relationship with well-being providers
- Exploring the development of a strategy for volunteering and social action, bringing VCS infrastructure organisations into a dialogue about how this can best be developed and supported.
- Connect the social economy with the private sector to co-produce solutions to social inequalities highlighted during the pandemic, focusing on the anticipated economic and social impact

The full recommendations can be found in Chapter 7, where we outline how these are addressed more specifically to different audiences: WMCA and its partners, and for the civil society and social economy sector in the West Midlands.