The Communities in Control study looked at the different ways in which residents involved in a community empowerment initiative worked together to improve their neighbourhoods and what helped and did not help them. We also explored whether community empowerment programmes can help to reduce the inequalities in health that exist between different groups and areas in England. Through this study we developed the power framework below to help us understand the power dynamics operating in sites of community action. We want to translate this framework into a form that can be used by community groups and activists to better understand how power operates in their setting and use that knowledge to help achieve their aims.