Publications Publications
We produce a wide range of publications from research reports to policy briefings, as well as our members' magazine, Clearway, and a monthly Policy Round-Up. Our Handy Guides provide practical information covering topics such as LSPs, Planning and local government. All our publications are designed to provide accessible and relevant information to help you get to the heart of what matters.
Don't know your Handy Guide from your Briefing? Read our explanation of what our different publications are.
Respondents to our social media survey told us about their 58 most useful tools that they use at work for online marketing help or in community activities. Most of them are free, or elements are free. We have tried to organise these around what they are used most for. However some of them have more than one function or offer more than one service, and people use them in different ways.
The Social Value Act 2012 came into force on the 31st January 2013. To mark this, Urban Forum has produced a new briefing on the Act, outlining what it is, what it could offer the sector, and its limitations.
Urban Forum is among several national charities to welcome the Act and took part in a discussion at Parliament on the day it came out discussing how it should be implemented. The meeting was called by Chris White MP, whose Private Members Bill started the whole thing off. You can read about this meeting at our blog, where Urban Forum's Rachel Newton discusses what the Act does and doesn't offer.
Grants to build capacity as part of the mycommunityrights support service are open to organisations wanting to improve how they show their social value.
Urban Forum has published a new report – How Are We Using Online Tools And Social Networking – following its recent survey into how people in the community sector are using online tools and social networking sites. The report examines what we found out - some things we expected and some that we didn't, and what we think this means we should do.
Urban Forum has put its name in support of the new Social Value Act for two reasons. Firstly, because scandal after scandal shows that social value urgently needs to be put back into the heart of public services. Secondly, if this doesn't happen, the notion of local community groups in most cases being able to take over bits of public services is so much hot air.
Read about the results of the Barrow Cadbury funded Community Rights Made Real project Urban Forum ran in conjunction with local partners Dudley Council for Voluntary Service, Dudley Metropolitan Borough Council and Dudley Community Partnership.
community rights made real in dudley
The Handy Guide To Planning 2012 is Urban Forum's updated version of the original 2006 Guide, which still ranks as on of our most successful publications.
Produced in association with Planning Aid it forms a great starting point to understanding the complicated system of Planning in England and Wales.
The latest edition of our online magazine, Clearway, looks at the issue of Social Finance. 