What is place-based working? This post aims to give you an overview of our initial thoughts and learnings as we embark on a transformational journey at Bromford.

The core concept of moving to place is shifting from a siloed, top-down approach to a bottom-up, community-centered system. 

The Bromford strategy involves piloting this model in specific areas, focusing on collaboration with local stakeholders and residents. 

What was the rationale for place-based working?

We believe our existing siloed organisational structure hinders the effectiveness of place-based initiatives like neighbourhood coaching. Additionally traditional top-down service models fail to address the unique needs of diverse communities, leading to inefficiencies and negative perceptions.

Place-based working aims to address these issues by enabling a more responsive and personalised approach.

"As we've matured the coaching model, we realised that we really needed to move everything to being place-based, and everything to being very relational with our customers." - John Wade

What are the principles of place-based working:

It’s a bottom-up approach: Prioritising community perspectives and empowering local decision-making.

It recognises diversity: Tailoring services to the specific needs of each location.

It’s a more efficient use of resources: Leveraging existing resources and collaborating with partners to maximise impact.

"Place-based working cannot follow a one-size-fits-all model because places are all different. Therefore the management system that is around it has to completely alter to reflect that." - Paul Taylor

What are the challenges we could face?

Organisational resistance: Overcoming ingrained top-down management structures and bureaucratic processes.

Shifting perspectives: Moving away from a deficit-based view of communities to recognising their strengths and assets.

Maintaining specialist expertise: Adapting management structures to retain specialised knowledge within geographically-focused teams.

"Trying to get leaders senior leaders not to see this as a distraction from the much more important work of ‘business as usual’, the day job. This is the important stuff, this is the stuff that hopefully is going to transform the way we work and have a very positive benefit for the people living in our homes, the places where they live, the communities they live in." - John Wade

What is the initial vision and goals?

Creating a more efficient, responsive, and community-driven organisation.

Empowering local communities to realise their own visions and priorities.

Fostering collaboration and integrated service delivery across sectors.

"For the places themselves the vision is whatever the people and the people working in those places think it should be. It’s not my vision to have. But I think if I talk for our colleagues, I think a much less complicated, less bureaucratic, less top down way of working where they have more autonomy to innovate with local residents would be the immediate vision” - Paul Taylor

What’s our current progress and next steps

We’ve launched two prototypes in Staple Hill, South Gloucestershire and Lichfield, Staffordshire, with a cross-functional team operating under a place lead.

We are planning for expansion to additional test areas, with a focus on community engagement and partnership building.

We are continuously iterating and adapting the model based on learnings from the prototypes and feedback from stakeholders.

Bromford's commitment to place-based working represents a significant shift in our organisational culture and approach to service delivery. By embracing a bottom-up, community-centric model, we aim to address the limitations of traditional top-down approaches and create a more responsive, personalised, and impactful organisation.

Watch the full YouTube episode below and sign up for our next webinar on Friday 14th February here.