Recommendations

On the basis of the consultation, we have prioritised actions for the Government, the business sector, voluntary and civil society organisations, and Business in the Community.

Our members are saying they are willing to get more engaged directly and through their ability to influence other businesses and we will redouble our efforts to use our expertise and networks, to create an overarching framework to turn the aspiration of a big society into a reality.

Recommendations for Government

  • Recognise, celebrate and raise awareness of best practice in local business community engagement cross-sector to help prompt more and more effective
    partnerships.
  • Champion best practice of good private-sector led regeneration to assist Local Authorities to capitalise on the opportunity of businesses to invest and locate in deprived areas.
  • Support growth of brokerage as a vital role, that has proven time and again to increase effective engagement and investment of businesses in local communities.
  • Remove the red-tape particularly associated with a) helping business to mobilise volunteers, b) to take actions that inspire, train and employ people who need to overcome social barriers to gain and sustain work and c) with companies collaborating on the impacts of their core business.
  • Use public sector procurement both at national and local levels as a positive lever for change.
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Recommendations for Business

  • Support and empower colleagues in business units to engage locally with the local public, voluntary and civil society sector
  • Champion best practice and work collaboratively to mobilise other businesses, particularly SMEs in support.
  • Evaluate local social and economic footprint to maximise positive impacts locally using the most appropriate assets and resources of the company.
  • Encourage and support a greater proportion of employees to volunteer
  • Work together to build on existing models of best practice and to develop new ways of investing in communities.
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Recommendations for voluntary and community groups

  • Raise public awareness and recognise best practice cross sector partnerships.
  • Explore ways of accelerating the engagement of SMEs in strategic and focused support to enable local voluntary and civil society organisations to take quick and meaningful local action.
  • Examine the ways organisations can more effectively articulate local community needs to the private sector, in order to maximise co-operation, simplification and cost effectiveness.
  • Develop tools for local community groups to identify and prioritise their needs in terms of business skills and non-financial support.
  • Develop training and capacity building partnerships with private sector companies who are winning government contracts in order to develop the commercial and work winning strategies of key social enterprises.
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Recommendations for BITC

  • Identify existing models which underpin successful brokerage, bringing together the interests and needs of business, the voluntary sector and local government. Develop the role into a new movement of business connectors
  • Work with leading members to develop new models for collaboration designed to ensure that interventions are genuinely long-term to achieve meaningful change and that the most deprived areas get support from business that they might not otherwise get.
  • Develop a tool to support companies assessing and managing the social and economic impacts of a significant local presence.
  • Make clear the business case for local community engagement and improve best practice frameworks for community investment credentials.
  • Continue to work with government to remove the identified potential barriers to business engagement.

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