The Community Right to Challenge is the right for community organisations to submit an expression of interest in running services of local authority and fire and rescue authorities on behalf on that authority.
If a company group, charity, parish council or group of staff of the authority identify a service they would like to run, they will need to submit an expression of interest to the authority. If the expression of interest is accepted we must then run a procurement exercise for the service. The interested group will need to compete with others who may wish to run the service.
Where the service is delivered as part of a statutory duty the public authority retains the statutory duty, even if they commission delivery of services to meet their statutory duties externally. This is the same as when services are commissioned out now – for example homelessness services can be contracted, but the legal duty towards homeless people remains with the local authority.
Community Right to Challenge aims to give communities more opportunities to shape and run local public services where they believe they can do so differently and better. They may think they could deliver services better or cheaper, make them more responsive to local needs, offer additional social value, or deliver better value for money. The services may be at any scale of activity from very local and small to authority wide.
How the Community Right to Challenge is to be implemented is set out in the Localism Act and regulations, and explained further in statutory guidance.
Understanding the Community Right to Challenge
Locality has produced an easy to use guide to the Community Right to Challenge.
- Understanding Community Right to Challenge guide [PDF / 197.55KB]
How do I express an interest?
Before starting a nomination please take time to read the Understanding Community Right to Challenge guide.
We are currently developing a new expression of interest form which will be available to download from this page soon. Whilst this is being completed please contact us by email if you want to express an interest.
Contact details
If you have a query about Community Right to Challenge you can contact us on:
Telephone: 01427 676676