Blog: Preventing Tensions and Conflicts in Communities

As recent events have shown, there is an urgent need to bring local partners together to share intelligence and prevent tensions and conflicts. This has been a long standing need, it is more acute now, but communities have always been dynamic with ever changing needs and concerns. Constant monitoring, supported by local organisations, and with timely interventions cannot be neglected.

The Prime Minister’s recent announcement of a new National Unit to monitor extremist activity and to intervene to try to prevent disorder is welcome. Organised groups of violent thugs have spread misinformation to create divisions and to exploit grievances for their own ends. Co-ordinating local intelligence is vital but so too, is the need to tackle the way social media uses algorithms to spread discontent. Only a national unit can respond to this. 

But a national unit is not enough. Local areas are very different from each other and an effective response will depend upon them building their own networks and resilience. Less than two years ago, Leicester’s cohesion – for which it was renowned – had broken down and was far too easily challenged by a mixture of external influences and local bad actors. The irony is that Leicester had helped my team to develop the previous guidance over 12 years ago – Understanding and Monitoring Tension and Conflict in Local Communities, or the ‘Tension Monitoring Toolkit’ as it became known. The two editions became widely used by local authorities and place forces in partnership with local communities. 

Like so many aspects of the Community Cohesion agenda that was put in place by the last Labour Government, the cohesion programme was allowed to lapse and then only re-visited every time a new disorder broke out. This is despite being reminded of the need for constant vigilance by such eminent people as Dame Louise Casey in 2016 and Dame Sara Khan earlier this year. Their recommendations remain outstanding – and the response to the Khan Review was left for the new Government to deal with. Given that the Conservatives dismantled many parts of the cohesion agenda – for example the school duty and the decision to increase single faith admissions to 100% – this may be fortuitous. 

Re-building effective local networks will take time. Agreeing information-sharing protocols will be one of the first steps. The statutory agencies – local authorities, health agencies, schools, police, universities, etc., will not only need to trust each other but also trust community organisations, religious and other groups. The next step is then how to interpret such information and to decode upon appropriate responses and interventions. Most of the tensions arise from misunderstandings or escalate from minor disputes. These do not require enforcement action, but careful and thoughtful work within communities, in which people learn to trust and respect each other. Resilience cannot be built after the event, it depends on pre-existing networks and community interactions.

 One of the key issues has become how communities communicate and receive information. We have not only seen the massive growth of social media, which often has no roots – or empathy – with local places, but also the decline of local press and media. It is very difficult to contest false information and stop the rumour mill without informed local networks. But these can be built with some support and communities can also build their own WhatsApp and other local platforms, perhaps with the help of local schools and other organisations. Local authorities also need to be much more active with every ward setting up regular consultation events and being very careful not to just dismiss every grievance because it has prejudiced overtones – this is exactly what drives people into the arms of extremists.

The Belong Network has inherited the original version of the Tension Monitoring Toolkit and has already updated some of the guidance and developed a community of practice around it. As a matter of urgency, Government needs to get behind this and enable a bottom up approach to complement their own national scheme. Resilience will not be built without local ownership and commitment and, in the light of recent challenges, it will certainly not endure without strong and deliberative support.