James Harrison

Policy and Design Team Lead, Community Ownership Fund, Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities

James is currently the Policy and Design team lead for the Community Ownership Fund at the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. In this role he leads the design of a £150m government fund to help community groups save assets that are important to them. Prior to this, he worked for a local authority delivering a number of community development and service design programmes, ranging from homelessness to food poverty. He studied at the University of Nottingham and King's College London with a focus on contemporary history, popular culture and politics.

Away from work, James is involved in a number of community-led organisations, tackling isolation, promoting rewilding and managing a community owned woodland. Here he puts into practice his belief that public institutions are most effective when they support community groups to identify and respond to the issues facing them on their own terms.