Amplifying impact through Anchor Networks
Exploring the potential of anchor networks in enabling and scaling anchor activity in a place
Words by CLES | published in EWSC Research & Insight
Key Takeaways:
This article looks into the potential of anchor networks in enabling and scaling anchor activity in a place. It focuses on two case studies in Durham and Birmingham which demonstrate the impact anchor networks can have by enabling progressive approaches to procurement and employment. These are the core learnings:
- Anchor networks are a key component of delivering community wealth building at scale in a place.
- Water utilities can amplify their impact as anchor institutions and stewards of place by collaborating with other anchor institutions as part of local anchor networks.
- Anchor networks help anchors to scale activities which can have a positive social, economic and environmental impact in their place through coordinated action.
1. The Potential of Anchor Institution Networks to Enable Water Smart Communities
The core purpose of anchor networks is to bring together a variety of stakeholders around a shared purpose to deliver positive social, economic and environmental change for a distinct geography. As collaboration and place are important elements which can enable water-smart communities, anchor networks could both support the delivery of water-smart communities as well as broader social, economic and environmental benefits which can be derived from this type of collaborative activity for a place. Connecting the public, private and community sectors will be extremely important to deliver water-smart communities at scale, so the types of structures that can enable deeper collaboration and deliver positive changes for places should be experimented with.
There is a growing necessity to build local economies that work for all. Poverty, low wages, inequality and under-employment are entrenched features of many local places, and the government’s focus on ‘levelling up’ the country calls for a concerted effort to build local economies that function for the benefit of all.
To drive this transition, community wealth building harnesses the collective power of anchor institutions. Anchor institutions are defined within institutional economics as large public, commercial and social sector organisations. that are rooted in their local place by way of their mission and history of physical assets. They typically include organisations like local authorities, NHS Trusts and universities. Individually, they can exert sizable influence in the local economy through the purchase of goods and services, the employment of local people and through the deployment of their land, property and financial assets. Collectively, they can amplify this effect and start to shift the dial to build a local economy that functions for the benefit of all.
If orientated around an ‘anchor mission’, anchor networks can facilitate and enable the interventions highlighted in ‘Shaping local economies through anchor activity’ such as targeted employment and use of land and assets for community-owned renewable energy production, to be delivered at scale.
There is a growing necessity to build local economies that work for all. Poverty, low wages, inequality and under-employment are entrenched features of many local places, and the government’s focus on ‘levelling up’ the country calls for a concerted effort to build local economies that function for the benefit of all.
To drive this transition, community wealth building harnesses the collective power of anchor institutions. Anchor institutions are defined within institutional economics as large public, commercial and social sector organisations that are rooted in their local place by way of their mission and history of physical assets. They typically include organisations like local authorities, NHS Trusts and universities. Individually, they can exert sizeable influence in the local economy through the purchase of goods and services, the employment of local people and through the deployment of their land, property and financial assets. Collectively, they can amplify this effect and start to shift the dial to build a local economy that functions for the benefit of all.
If orientated around an ‘anchor mission’, anchor networks can facilitate and enable the interventions highlighted in ‘Shaping local economies through anchor activity’, such as targeted employment and use of land and assets for community-owned renewable energy production, to be delivered at scale.
2. From isolated anchors to local networks
The role of anchor institutions is rooted in institutional economics, particularly the notion that institutions can shape economic activity and behaviour. This theoretical bedrock sparks a different way of thinking about institutions and the influence they have on people and society, positioning anchors as a powerful force for social, economic and environmental justice within a locality. In doing so, these organisations therefore affect the social determinants of health — that’s to say, the conditions in which people are born, live, and work.
Recognition of the role that anchors can play here has been growing steadily and is now advancing at a national policy level — particularly in health and higher education, for example. CLES’s work with the Democracy Collaborative and the Health Foundation on health institutions as anchors has informed a commitment in the NHS Long Term Plan to work with sites across the country to identify good anchor practice that can be adopted across England. The Civic Universities Commission report highlights the potential for Higher Education institutions to operate as anchor institutions, delivering significant local social and economic benefit.
Water utility companies clearly meet the definition of an anchor institution, sharing the key characteristics which define them. They are place based organisations with a long-term interest in the vitality of all the communities they serve, including those who are suffering from poverty or disadvantage. They hold significant fixed assets and land and have a sizeable investment in the infrastructure of a place. They also employ a significant workforce and are major buyers of goods and services in the economy, having extensive supply chains.
We see many positive examples of water utilities engaging with other anchor institutions and their local communities to deliver more positive social, economic and environmental outcomes in the places they operate. This collaboration is a key enabler of community wealth building. For water utilities companies to further develop their roles as anchor institutions, action could be taken to enable and support the development of good practices (as outlined in ‘Shaping local economies through anchor activity’), sharing of learning across the sector and building partnerships with other anchor institutions and local communities as part of anchor networks within their areas of operation.
Anchor networks often come into existence through different means and responding to different local priorities. Once operational, the governance of these networks can be flexible according to the local needs and opportunities of the places they operate. Where in operation elsewhere, such as Birmingham, the anchor network is driven by a ‘memorandum of understanding to build community wealth’ and are steered by a leadership group of senior representatives from each anchor organisation involved. They often also have sub-working groups dedicated to specific projects, such as employment and land use.
Working together as part of anchor networks, anchor institutions are demonstrating how they can wield their institutional power and knowledge to create economies of scale and lock-in wealth for local people and place. CLES have worked extensively on the creation and establishment of anchor networks — a “how to guide” and case studies based on our experience are available for more information.
We explore some examples below.
Case Study: County Durham Pound
The County Durham Pound project brings together anchor institutions in the region, with a combined annual spend of over £925m, to work collaboratively towards maximising the social, economic and environmental value through their spending. The network includes Northumbrian Water, Durham County Council and 10 other organisations across the housing, education and blue light sectors.
Through activities such as training sessions, meet the buyer events, analysis of spend data, sharing of market intelligence and knowledge of local suppliers, the project has created a community of anchor institutions sharing best practice and delivering for their communities. The County Durham Pound is harnessing the collective power of its anchor institutions by minimising barriers to entry for existing firms, allowing easy access to tenders from many of the large local procurers of goods and services and by creating markets where they don’t currently exist.
In 2021–22, Northumbrian Water exceeded their 60p in the £1 target, spending 63.4p in every £1 with local businesses or contracts delivered locally, amounting to £305m spent locally (CLES, County Durham Pound Spend Analysis, 2021). A survey of suppliers showed that for every £1 spent, 28p was re-spent into the local economy through supplier employment and procurement (CLES, County Durham Pound Spend Analysis, 2021).
Case Study: Birmingham Anchor Network’s Progressive Employment Interventions — ‘I Can’
The Birmingham Anchor Network has developed a multi-partner project to target their employment demand toward disadvantaged communities, with a particular focus on channelling those in need of employment towards secure work within the NHS.
This intervention was initially designed and delivered in response to pandemic-induced unemployment and recruitment issues. A local housing association identified vulnerable residents at risk of redundancy within the hospitality industry, while Birmingham University Hospital Trust were struggling to meet new recruitment demand into entry level positions. Through their membership of the anchor network, they were able to identify a shared solution and developed a pilot scheme — ‘Hospitality to Health’ — which targeted employment towards those at-risk residents while providing pre-employment support and removing barriers to entry within the recruitment process.
Demonstrating the success of this pilot and now growing in scope, this project is now led by the Birmingham & Solihull ICS, under the name ‘I Can’, which expands the scope of ‘Hospitality to Health’ to target employment specifically from disadvantaged communities through methods employed in the pilot. To date, 400 unemployed Birmingham residents have been supported into jobs and in 2021 noted that 88% of participants came from the most deprived wards and 70% from BAME communities — a significant increase compared to previous NHS employment patterns.
This approach could be explored by water utilities companies to make their workforces more representative of the communities they serve, as outlined in the EWSC article ‘Shaping local economies through anchor activity’.
Water utilities can amplify their impact as anchor institutions and stewards of place by collaborating with other local anchor institutions as part of an anchor network. Anchor networks help anchors to scale activities which can have a positive social, economic and environmental impact in their place through coordinated action.
This article is written by CLES (The Centre for Local Economic Strategies), the national organisation for local economies. CLES contributed research on the theme of stewardship and the role of water companies as anchor institutions. This article is one of four produced by CLES: Water companies as place-based anchors; Shaping local economies through anchor activity; and Place-based stewardship in other sectors.
As Discovery research lead and series editor, Arup’s Transformation & Design Studio led the multi-partner research effort contributing public innovation and strategic design expertise.
This is one of a series of insight articles produced as part of the EWSC innovation programme, exploring how integrated water management can be delivered through innovative housing and stewardship models. For an overview of the project, latest news or to get in touch visit https://www.ewsc.org.uk/.
