Community action involves greater engagement of local citizens in planning, designing, and delivering local services. It aims to build community and social capacity by sharing knowledge and skills, help the community support itself to be more resilient, focus on prevention through early access to services and cross-sector collaboration, and help maintain and create wealth through opportunities like employment or community enterprises. Community action puts communities at the heart of their own services.

2.  Community action includes a broad range of activities
and is sometimes described as ‘social action' or
‘community engagement'.

3.  These activities can vary in their objective, the role the
community plays, the types of activities involved, their
scale and their integration within the council. What
they have in common is that they all involve greater
engagement of local citizens in the planning, design
and delivery of local services.

4. Why is community action
important?
Community action is about putting communities at
the heart of their own local services. Involving
communities in the design and delivery of services can
help to achieve a number of objectives, including:

5.  Building community and social capacity – helping
the community to share knowledge, skills and ideas.
 Community resilience – helping the community to
support itself.
 Prevention – a focus on early access to services or
support, engagement in design, cross-sector
collaboration and partnerships.
 Maintaining and creating wealth – for example
helping people into employment or developing
community enterprises.