Locked down, locked out? Local partnership resilience in the COVID-19 pandemic

While its long-term economic and social effects are unknown, Covid-19 has created both challenges and opportunities for reducing social deprivation. Local partnerships have a key role in addressing social inequalities, particularly in Scotland, yet little is known about these partnerships and their adaptations to the pandemic. Investigating this would allow new and innovative responses to be identified and promoted, to mitigate the impact of Covid-19 and other crises on the most disadvantaged groups. This project will be undertaken in Scotland to provide evidence to local partners across the UK, as well as contributing to academic knowledge about local governance, partnerships, community resilience and social impacts of Covid-19. Scotland's local partnership approach, developed in response to austerity in 2011, aims to improve efficiency and reduce inequalities by prioritising partnership and prevention (Christie Commission, 2011). The pandemic may have hindered physical face-to-face 'partnership work' which depends on regular meetings and local support agreements; however, there is evidence that some local partnerships have overcome bureaucratic obstacles and inter-agency barriers with unprecedented speed to facilitate partnership working in other ways (Teixeira, 2020). This project will deploy surveys and interviews with local partners across Scotland, providing deep and broad understanding of challenges and adaptations for local partnerships in various settings. Good/innovative partnership practice will be identified to mitigate the pandemic's effects on existing social inequalities, culminating in the dissemination of a Best Practice Framework to stakeholders UK-wide. If funded, this project would begin in November 2020, to share this framework by the end of 2021.