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What is infrastructure for? What will charities, voluntary organisations and community groups need? How can we best be organised to provide that? And finally, how should that support be paid for, when the sector’s own finances can’t sustain the infrastructure it needs alone? This presents key questions around function, form and finance.

National policy sets out a clear ambition to shift care closer to home, strengthen prevention, and bring services together around people and communities through neighbourhood health. This reflects a growing understanding that health is shaped by the conditions of people’s daily lives, and not by services alone. What is often less clear is how to put this ambition into practice through partnership with communities and the VCSE sector.

We’re looking for a new person to join the NAVCA team as our Health and Wellbeing Manager, on a six-month contract for three days per week – could this be you?

This latest analysis of LIO finances shows how fragmented and uncertain funding can be, with core work often reliant on multiple sources. If we recognise the value of local infrastructure, how can we fund it in a way that enables it to deliver lasting benefits for the public sector, the VCSE sector, and communities?

Charities and community organisations are making increasingly difficult financial decisions. Rising costs, growing demand and pressure on traditional sources of funding mean many are looking at new ways to build financial resilience.

Changing geographical footprints or structures will not, on its own, change how systems work. Genuine neighbourhood health requires investment in community capacity, different relationships, shared accountability and a willingness to redistribute power.