Leicester community development audit final report

This report presents the findings of an audit of community development work in Leicester. A survey identified 48 organisations employing community development workers and 72 community groups within the city whose activities at some level could be described as community development. Both groups were asked to summarise, among other questions, the range of community development tasks they undertook, their funding sources, issues they covered, types of community group they worked with and ways in which they related to community members. An additional section examined ways in which their work contributed to community cohesion within the city. Most community development workers spent most of their time during a week facilitating consultation between community groups and other organisations/agencies. Their key issues were equal opportunity work, community cohesion and education and training. Community groups had far less secure funding sources than employed community workers and were classified as demonstrating high, medium and low levels of community development in their work. Those working at ‘high’ and ‘medium’ levels demonstrated some convergence with employed community workers in the type of issues worked on although the groups they targeted differed.