Community cohesion

Community cohesion has been defined in slightly different ways but, at its core, it means: establishing shared values and building better relationships by bringing people together across cultural divides, no matter a person's age, gender, race, sexual orientation or religion.

The concept of community cohesion was established in the United Kingdom following a number of . Although the term had been used in different contexts previously, for example in Canada, the first report to employ the term and to propose a new policy framework around it, was Community Cohesion: The Report of The Independent Review Team (the "Cantle Report"). This followed the riots in a number of towns in northern England in the summer of that year. The Report considered the national and wider dimensions of community relations and reviewed both those areas that had not suffered disturbances, as well as those that had. The Report’s findings represented a fundamental challenge to the then multicultural model and became best known for identifying the parallel lives of minority and majority communities, but also proposed a wide range of new policies which were subsequently adopted by government and other agencies.

The Cantle Report was supported by three local reviews of the three towns most affected by the riots. These were: for Bradford, the Ouseley Report (2001); for Oldham, the Ritchie Report (2001) and; for Burnley, the Clarke Report (2001) (the Ouseley Report was commissioned prior to the disturbances in Bradford). The Government responded with Building Cohesive Communities, a Report of the Ministerial Group on Public Order (The "Denham Report") which set out a wide range of proposed actions.

The concept of community cohesion was subsequently widely adopted in the UK and some of the ideas and approaches have also been taken up in other countries. Government, local government, public service and voluntary agencies widely embraced the new policy direction, many establishing community cohesion officers and teams to develop strategies and implement the new approach. While the Welsh Government continues with its strategy, in England, the Coalition Government elected in 2010 preferred to build their strategy around the idea of integration, though many policies have remained the same.

There have been at least three formal national definitions of the concept, each building upon the other over the six-year period from 2002 to 2008. All refer, however, to the need for strong and positive relationships between people from different backgrounds, tackling inequalities and developing a positive climate of opinion to support diversity. There are also a large number of local definitions, which draw upon the formal national definitions but tend to add a local context.

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