Catalogue description Home Office: Community Development (CYD Symbol Series) Files

The inclusion of a date following a file number (eg. CYD 13/1/1(80) indicates the year in which the file is supposed to have been created, but often it only indicates the year in which the first subfile was raised on a particular subject.

The Community Development Project was a research project initiated in 1969. It was a neighbourhood-based experiment aimed at finding new ways of meeting the needs of people living in areas of high social deprivation by bringing together the work of the social services under the leadership of a special project team and also by tapping resources of self-help and mutual-help from among the people in the neighbourhood. The local authorities of Coventry, Liverpool and Southwark were the first to take part when the Project began.

The Project was administered by the Community Relations Department (I Division) of the Home Office which was renamed the Community Programmes Department in 1972. I Division had responsibility for policy on community relations and race relations and was responsible for grants to local authorities under section 11 of the Local Government Act 1966 to help with special provisions for the immigrant population and the administration of the Urban Programme.

In 1974 the Urban Deprivation Unit was set up as a multi-disciplinary unit, including economists, statisticians and a social policy analyst. Its main function was preparing for the Policy Analysis and Review on urban deprivation. In 1975/1976 it became part of the Community Programmes Department and took over responsibility for the Urban Programme, Section 11 grants and the Community Development Project.

The Urban Deprivation Unit was abolished in 1978/1979 although the Community Development Project continued to be administered within the Home Office until 1980.