Cook, J., Thiery, H. orcid.org/0000-0001-9108-5721 and Burchell, J. orcid.org/0000-0002-5142-5346 (2025) No longer ‘waiting for the great leap forwards’? Advances in local state-voluntary and community sector relationships during Covid-19. Journal of Social Policy, 54 (1). pp. 121-140. ISSN 0047-2794
Abstract
Despite the significant influence of localism on policy discourses in the UK in recent decades, there has been limited evidence of any fundamental changes in state-civil society relationships. The outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 created a new context for cross-sectoral collaboration, as the local Voluntary and Community Sector (VCS) and local communities moved to the forefront of the crisis response. This paper draws upon 49 semi-structured interviews with local authorities (LAs) and VCS organisations across England, Scotland and Wales, to explore how the pandemic has reshaped LA-VCS collaboration. Examining the evolution of a range of local collaborative frameworks during the Covid-19 crisis, the article examines what enabled these collaborations to develop, how they operated and what insights can be derived regarding both the conditions for collaboration to flourish and the capacity to sustain this going forward. The findings offer insights into what more progressive forms of collaboration might look like during the transition from crisis and into recovery. It contributes to broader debates about whether the models deployed during Covid-19 represent a pathway to more consensus-based collaboration after a decade of antagonism between civil society and the state.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Social Sciences (Sheffield) > Management School (Sheffield) |
Funding Information: | Funder Grant number DEPARTMENT FOR DIGITAL, CULTURE, MEDIA AND SPORT nan |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 16 Mar 2023 12:19 |
Last Modified: | 12 Feb 2025 10:18 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Cambridge University Press (CUP) |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1017/s0047279422000939 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:197436 |