Working Better Together - Reimagining the council's relationship with community groups and organisations

The Communities Strategy

In October 2025 Sheffield City Council agreed a new Communities Strategy, 2025-2035, to set the direction for how the council will work differently in and with communities so that all communities in Sheffield can be happy, healthy and take action about the things that matter to them. This strategy was written with the involvement of many community groups and organisations in Sheffield from the early engagement, through to drafting the the strategy, consultation and even presenting the proposed strategy to committee.

Delivering our commitment of a renewed relationship

The first commitment in the strategy is a of a "Renewed relationship with community organisations and groups", working together to redefine our relationship, co-write new working principles and ensuring that we involve our partners in the community sector in the design of services and in decision-making spaces.

Working better with community organisations and groups is also key to delivering on the other commitments in the strategy: engaging and understanding communities, joined-up, human services in the heart of communities and investing in communities.

Working Better Together - VCFSE Relationship working group

This group is made up of 22 people representing a diagonal slice of Sheffield's community, voluntary, faith and social enterprise sectors, from volunteer-led action groups to large service delivery and community anchor organistions, working across different neighbourhoods, communities and themes. Working with officers from a range of teams, this group is co-designing a vision of what we want our relationship to look and feel like, as well as developing recommendations for specific aspects of how we work together, from funding and procurement to shared decision-making.

Co-designing a £2.2 million invesment into the sector

We're working with a separate group of 25 representatives from all kinds of community group and organisation representing different communities of place, identity and interest around the city to decide how to best use a £2.2 million investment into the community sector from public health reserves. This group is defining the purpose of the investment and making recommendations for how the fund is managed. We'll take these recommendations to design the programme with a smaller technical group from May onwards.

We'll post updates from our work with these two groups on this page.

Email grants@sheffield.gov.uk if you'd like to know more.

Photo from our launch event at the Town Hall on 20th Oct 2025.

The Communities Strategy

In October 2025 Sheffield City Council agreed a new Communities Strategy, 2025-2035, to set the direction for how the council will work differently in and with communities so that all communities in Sheffield can be happy, healthy and take action about the things that matter to them. This strategy was written with the involvement of many community groups and organisations in Sheffield from the early engagement, through to drafting the the strategy, consultation and even presenting the proposed strategy to committee.

Delivering our commitment of a renewed relationship

The first commitment in the strategy is a of a "Renewed relationship with community organisations and groups", working together to redefine our relationship, co-write new working principles and ensuring that we involve our partners in the community sector in the design of services and in decision-making spaces.

Working better with community organisations and groups is also key to delivering on the other commitments in the strategy: engaging and understanding communities, joined-up, human services in the heart of communities and investing in communities.

Working Better Together - VCFSE Relationship working group

This group is made up of 22 people representing a diagonal slice of Sheffield's community, voluntary, faith and social enterprise sectors, from volunteer-led action groups to large service delivery and community anchor organistions, working across different neighbourhoods, communities and themes. Working with officers from a range of teams, this group is co-designing a vision of what we want our relationship to look and feel like, as well as developing recommendations for specific aspects of how we work together, from funding and procurement to shared decision-making.

Co-designing a £2.2 million invesment into the sector

We're working with a separate group of 25 representatives from all kinds of community group and organisation representing different communities of place, identity and interest around the city to decide how to best use a £2.2 million investment into the community sector from public health reserves. This group is defining the purpose of the investment and making recommendations for how the fund is managed. We'll take these recommendations to design the programme with a smaller technical group from May onwards.

We'll post updates from our work with these two groups on this page.

Email grants@sheffield.gov.uk if you'd like to know more.

Photo from our launch event at the Town Hall on 20th Oct 2025.

  • Working together for better community engagement

    In May, our relationship working group met to talk about community engagement, with the key question of:

    How should the council work with voluntary, community, faith and social enterprise organisations to listen to understand and work with communities in the city?

    There's a full write-up in the outputs section, and during the session we heard some impactful examples of community engagement and involvement in the city, showcasing creativity, authenticity and truly participatory and community-led approaches. We had a really insightful and useful conversation with some healthy challenge for the council in its current approach, with some strong themes coming through below:

    Key Takeaways

    • Engagement needs to have a clear impact, communication and feedback loops
    • Building trust and connections through long term involvement in and with a community
    • Physical presence in communities is key – both through co-location and proactively visiting and showing up
    • True partnership working and collaboration with community groups, organisations and communities themselves leads to better results
    • We should aim to go beyond consultation and engagement and aim to work with communities to describe the issues, design solutions and act together to make real change
    • “Nothing about us without us is for us”

    Recommendations for a new approach to Community Engagement at Sheffield City Council

    1. Communities must co-produce the new engagement strategy.
    2. Community development is key to engagement and building long term relationships at the speed of trust.
    3. We need to put more council officers in community spaces.
    4. All engagement should be designed with realistic timelines that include feedback.
    5. Resource and training to develop resources that make sense and are accessible to different communities.
    6. We need to have better coordinated engagement across council departments through a tracker and shared insights.
    7. Working in partnership for community engagement is key and must be properly resourced.
    8. We need clear definitions of different levels of engagement and guidance for when they are appropriate.
    9. Action plan to test out true participatory approaches including participatory budgeting.
    10. We need to build a culture of listening and responding.

    In May, our relationship working group met to talk about community engagement, with the key question of:

    How should the council work with voluntary, community, faith and social enterprise organisations to listen to understand and work with communities in the city?

    There's a full write-up in the outputs section, and during the session we heard some impactful examples of community engagement and involvement in the city, showcasing creativity, authenticity and truly participatory and community-led approaches. We had a really insightful and useful conversation with some healthy challenge for the council in its current approach, with some strong themes coming through below:

    Key Takeaways

    • Engagement needs to have a clear impact, communication and feedback loops
    • Building trust and connections through long term involvement in and with a community
    • Physical presence in communities is key – both through co-location and proactively visiting and showing up
    • True partnership working and collaboration with community groups, organisations and communities themselves leads to better results
    • We should aim to go beyond consultation and engagement and aim to work with communities to describe the issues, design solutions and act together to make real change
    • “Nothing about us without us is for us”

    Recommendations for a new approach to Community Engagement at Sheffield City Council

    1. Communities must co-produce the new engagement strategy.
    2. Community development is key to engagement and building long term relationships at the speed of trust.
    3. We need to put more council officers in community spaces.
    4. All engagement should be designed with realistic timelines that include feedback.
    5. Resource and training to develop resources that make sense and are accessible to different communities.
    6. We need to have better coordinated engagement across council departments through a tracker and shared insights.
    7. Working in partnership for community engagement is key and must be properly resourced.
    8. We need clear definitions of different levels of engagement and guidance for when they are appropriate.
    9. Action plan to test out true participatory approaches including participatory budgeting.
    10. We need to build a culture of listening and responding.

  • Describing the social value of community groups and organisations in Sheffield

    In our third meeting with the Working Better Together working group, we spoke about social value. The Venn diagram activity in February's meeting highlighted the value of the Voluntary, Community, Faith and Social Enterprise sector in Sheffield as being one of the most important things in our relationship, both being good value for money, but also the huge social value or impact these groups and organisations bring to communities around the city through offering person-centred and holistic support, creating connections between people and organisations, learning, work and volunteering opportunities, and much more.

    Social Value in Procurement

    Social value is also

    In our third meeting with the Working Better Together working group, we spoke about social value. The Venn diagram activity in February's meeting highlighted the value of the Voluntary, Community, Faith and Social Enterprise sector in Sheffield as being one of the most important things in our relationship, both being good value for money, but also the huge social value or impact these groups and organisations bring to communities around the city through offering person-centred and holistic support, creating connections between people and organisations, learning, work and volunteering opportunities, and much more.

    Social Value in Procurement

    Social value is also an important term in procurement, which is when the council buys goods and services. Social value in procurement aims to achieve more with the money the council spends and requires suppliers with large contracts to offer social value through things like local job creation, learning opportunities and sustainability. The current system has achieved some great impact for Sheffielders, but there have been questions raised about how well this system works for voluntary, community, faith and social enterprise organsiations. Sheffield City Council has committed to reviewing its approach to social value to make sure we can achieve better impact for the people of Sheffield.

    In April we met to work together to answer two questions:

    - How do we describe the social value of community groups and organisations in Sheffield?

    - How might we approach social value in procurement differently?

    What social value do community groups and organisations bring?

    We heard from participants that social value "is just what [they] do". It is their main mission and at the heart of everything they do, and it's often what they do whether they are funded to do so, or not.

    • A safe, welcoming place to go where people can get supportand the information they need

    • Formal and informal learning opportunities to help peopleadjust to life in a new place or to enter the workplace

    • Ethical work places that provide work and volunteeropportunities for local people with lived experience

    • Deep understanding of communities, places and issues

    • Community ownership of spaces, libraries, parks buildingsand projects

    • Better connected and holistic services that are able to meetcommunity needs

    • Local partnerships and collaboration

    • Preventing crime and keeping people well

    • Community connections, friendships and bringing peoplefrom different backgrounds together

    • Reduce the need for and complement statutory services

    • Value for money

    How does social value work in procurement, and how might we approach it differently?

    Social value is now a legal requirement for public sector procurement.

    “Using public spending to deliver wider social, economic and environmental benefits for communities, in addition to the main outputs of the contract. In practical terms, improving outcomes such as job creation, sustainability and community wellbeing.”

    It aims to achieve more with each pound the council spends, particularly on largescale projects in commercial settings, e.g. a large construction company that wins a multimillion pound tender.

    It aims to create additional social value on top of what is being contracted and we use a platform called the Social Value Portal as a measurement tool.

    Issues have arisen in areas like people services, where non-profit providers have been asked to pay to use the platform and commit to providing additional social value on contracts that only just cover the cost of delivery.

    Additional Vs Inherent Social Value

    In the meeting we spoke about two kinds of social value:

    Inherent social value

    Social value or impact that's built into an organisation's mission and ways of working

    Additional social value

    The extra social value an organisation could commit to on top of a contract to deliver a service

    A disadvantage for community groups and organisations

    The group found that the vast majority of the social value they bring would be described as inherent, and therefore doesn't meet the requirements for social value in procurement. Members identified a few areas that they could build on their inherent social value as part of a contract, for example in the creation of local jobs. However, overall it was felt that the current approach to social value in procurement puts community groups and organisations at a disadvantage because it favours measuring additional social value that private sector companies might offer on condition of winning a contract.

    How might Sheffield City Council approach social value in procurement differently?

    The group came up with a number of recommendations:

    1. Design new social value measures with people and organisations in Sheffield to ensure they meet our communities' needs.

    2. Recognise inherent social value in procurement processes, for example and automatic 5% for registered charities or social enterprises.

    3. Social value should be baked in to applications, not an add-on.

    4. Make procurement more accessible to VCFSE and SMEs, e.g. by creating smaller contracts and supporting the creation of alliances.

    5. Prioritise grassroots to cut our middle men that aren't embedded incommunities.

    6. More co-commissioning to ensure we have better designed opportunities that benefit Sheffield.

    What's next?

    1. This is the beginning of a conversation to review the council's approach to social value in procurement over the coming year.

    2. These insights will be fed into the council's Commissioning, Procurement and Contract Management change programme.

    3. Finally, the insights will form part of our co-designed working principles that we are working towards with this working group.


  • Redefining the relationship between community organisations and groups and Sheffield City Council

    What do we want the relationship between Sheffield City Council and community groups and organisations to look like?

    In February we had a great conversation at Broomhall Centre with co-facilitation from the Andy Freeman from Space to Breathe CIC, which culminated in this ginormous Venn diagram - a brilliantly tangible output from our work! We asked our working group "What do we all bring to the relationship?"

    Our VCFSE Relationship working group (official name still TBC...) involves representatives from all kinds of community groups and organisations around the city, from small volunteer-led groups and new social enterprises to large service providers and community anchors. A really varied group, but with lots in common in terms of what they felt voluntary, community, faith and social enterprise organisations bring to the relationship: long-term, trusted relationships with and support for people and communities; deep understanding of people, places and issues; an independent voice; financial and social value; flexibility, creativity and responsiveness.

    As we focused on the middle bit of the Venn, what we do together, we generated lots of aspirations and direction for the year ahead, with people and Sheffield at the heart of everything we do:
    - Real human relationships, sincere conversations, openness and trust
    - Shared problems, solutions and learning
    - Making the case for system and policy change together
    - Coming together to work in the heart of communities

    Over the next year, we're going to get into the HOW we make this happen, focusing on different aspects of our relationship at each session.

    We've added a full write-up of this session to the documents on this page.

    What do we want the relationship between Sheffield City Council and community groups and organisations to look like?

    In February we had a great conversation at Broomhall Centre with co-facilitation from the Andy Freeman from Space to Breathe CIC, which culminated in this ginormous Venn diagram - a brilliantly tangible output from our work! We asked our working group "What do we all bring to the relationship?"

    Our VCFSE Relationship working group (official name still TBC...) involves representatives from all kinds of community groups and organisations around the city, from small volunteer-led groups and new social enterprises to large service providers and community anchors. A really varied group, but with lots in common in terms of what they felt voluntary, community, faith and social enterprise organisations bring to the relationship: long-term, trusted relationships with and support for people and communities; deep understanding of people, places and issues; an independent voice; financial and social value; flexibility, creativity and responsiveness.

    As we focused on the middle bit of the Venn, what we do together, we generated lots of aspirations and direction for the year ahead, with people and Sheffield at the heart of everything we do:
    - Real human relationships, sincere conversations, openness and trust
    - Shared problems, solutions and learning
    - Making the case for system and policy change together
    - Coming together to work in the heart of communities

    Over the next year, we're going to get into the HOW we make this happen, focusing on different aspects of our relationship at each session.

    We've added a full write-up of this session to the documents on this page.

Page last updated: 09 Jun 2026, 03:53 PM