Citizen-generated local development initiative: recent English experience

This paper looks at the civil society enterprises which have been emerging in many parts of Europe in recent years, focusing on the experience in England. Rather than forms of citizen ‘participation’ in public policy, these enterprises involve the direct provision of goods and services through citizen-generated initiatives. They respond to the deficiencies arising from financial constraints and changes in the public sector's role and from inadequacies in the quality of market delivery of welfare services. They also reflect a search by citizens for more locally sensitive provision of goods and services. The paper briefly reviews the place of civil society enterprises, illustrated with examples from relatively successful ones which have emerged in the past two decades. The paper concludes with a commentary on what has enabled these enterprises to get started and grow in scale and scope, how they relate to the formal government sector and their potential future.