Councils urged to cut red tape to ‘avoid damaging the microbiome’ of local support

Councils are being called on to cut bureaucracy for charities they contract and fund to “avoid damaging the microbiome” of local support.

The call has been made in a blog post by local infrastructure organisation body the National Association for Voluntary and Community Action (NAVCA)’s integrated care system lead Sam James and the University of Exeter human geographer Catherine Leyshon.

They warn that “structural barriers” exist to hinder the relationships between groups and commissioners involved in local service delivery.

This includes “local authority bureaucracy”. They are urging local commissioners to value small charities and ensure they are “not overwhelming them with bureaucratic processes that exceed their capacity and don’t meet their needs”.

Councils and other local commissioners are also urged to ensure they include small organisations in decision making and help them by “providing consistent advocacy, financial support, and direct engagement, ensuring they are seen as part of the system rather than as outsiders”.

Also being called for is an end to “inflexible funding models”.

Latest figures cited by James and Leyshon show that each top tier council works with 3,234 charities and community organisations, while each primary care network is supported by 404 such organisations.

“These numbers reinforce the sheer scale and importance of the microbiome,” say James and Leyshon.

“The challenge is not the lack of local community-led action, but the lack of recognition and resourcing. If systems continue to undervalue these organisations, they risk disrupting the delicate balance of local support ecosystems, increasing pressure on statutory services.”

They add: “System change starts with a mindset shift. If we want to build resilient, community-driven health systems, we must prioritise collaboration over control, empowerment over exclusion, and partnership over paternalism.

The microbiome of the VCSE sector is not just a collection of small organisations: it is the foundation of community resilience. Let’s start treating it that way.”