The Communities secretary Hazel Blears has written a plan to try and  help local communities get 'empowered'. Its called 'An Action Plan For Community Empowerment: building on success', and the idea is to make local decisions by involving local people so that new ideas work better. One important bit of the plan talks about making some money available to be spent through 'participatory budgeting'- which means getting local people (including young people) involved in  directing how money is spent. You can have your say on their online forum.