December 2010
26 posts
'Inspire the Big Society' - Greg Clark's... →
Greg Clark, Minister for Decentralisation, has written to all Local Authority Leaders and Chief Executives in England inviting councils to consult their communities on how they would like to
improve their local area
take whatever action they deem appropriate
and request the Government remove any bureaucratic barrier which is stopping them
Mr Clark writes, “We want to make localism...
Localism Bill - briefings →
Two briefings on the recently published Localism Bill are now available:
Urban Forum briefing
Local Government Association briefing
See also:
NAVCA’s Real Power for Communities website
Follow the bill’s progress through parliament
21 December 2010
New draft indicators published →
The fomer national indicator set (NIS) has been abolished by Eric Pickles, Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, but national government will still require local councils to collect a significant quantity of data from April 2011. The draft 147 indicators published by government departments for consultation include 15 new ones arising out of the coalition government’s ...
Local government finance settlement - initial... →
The House of Commons Library has published its initial analysis of the proposed local government grant allocations announced by Eric Pickles, Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, on 13 December. The figures, which have already been the subject of heated debate in the press and elsewhere, are subject to consultation until 17 January. The final settlement figures are likely...
'Big Society' - Third Sector Research Centre... →
A concise and readable review of the origins and development of the ‘Big Society’ policy idea has been published by the Community Sector Coalition. In his paper, Building the Big Society: a new policy environment for the third sector in England, Pete Alcock of Birmingham University’s Third Sector Research Centre describes how the Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition...
LEPs: 'Top-down devolution must be met by... →
Only eight of the 24 LEP proposals accepted by the government contain any reference to the ‘Big Society’, according to a briefing paper from the Consultation Institute. Local Enterprise Partnerships - the engagement challenge also draws on material in the approved proposals to make the point that local decision-making powers must be complemented by engagement with communities and...
Local support providers want to work with LEPs -... →
85% of local voluntary & community sector (VCS) support and development organisations want to work with Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs), according to research published by Capacitybuilders. The report Local Enterprise Partnerships and Civil Society also finds, however, that only 15% of support providers have been approached to be involved. In their original invitation to local public...
The new Compact - a critical look →
Following this week’s publication of the renewed Compact, it is worth taking another look at some of the reservations concerning the document which were expressed during the consultation period two months ago. At the time, Paul Barasi, director of Concrete Solutions CIC, urged that the Compact “be put at the heart of the Big Society”, in accordance with the government’s...
Q&A: Council funding grants cut →
A useful guide to local authority grants from central government and the cutbacks currently being made has been published on the BBC News website. The guide provides user-friendly answers to the following questions:
How are local authorities funded?
What grants do councils get?
What do councils spend the money on?
How hard are local authorities going to be hit?
Where can I see the...
New elected mayors - timing announced →
Under proposals announced in the new Localism Bill, council leaders in Birmingham, Bradford, Bristol, Coventry, Leeds, Leicester, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle, Nottingham, Sheffield and Wakefield would become shadow mayors and be given the powers available to existing mayors, after the Bill receives Royal Assent
The Department for Communities and Local Government said that these cities - ...
'Council grants cuts vary from 4.8% to 17.3%' -... →
Aylesbury Vale district council is facing a 17.3% cut in its grant from central government, compared with a 4.8% cut for Surrey county council, according to an early examination of the figures by the Local Government Chronicle (LGC). The Conservative peer Baroness Margaret Heaton, Chair of the Local Government Association, said that the detailed figures (available below) reveal “a total...
Participation and engagement - new publications →
Strengthening participation: learning from participants is a new report from Pathways through Participation which sets out some of the project’s learning about the motivations, triggers, barriers and impacts around citizen involvement. On a similar theme, the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex has published a new working paper, So What Difference Does It Make:...
Teeth for the new Compact? →
Three measures have been announced by the government which are intended to provide an unprecedented level of scrutiny for the renewed Compact, published yesterday:
The National Audit Office will undertake a review of the Compact’s effectiveness to identify good practice and areas for improvement
The Parliamentary and Local Government Ombudsmen will have powers to report and...
Three more LEPs approved →
Three more local enterprise partnerships were approved today by Vince Cable, Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS), and Eric Pickles, Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (CLG). The newly-approved partnerships cover
New Anglia (Norfolk and Suffolk)
the Black Country
Worcestershire
These join the 24 partnerships approved in October at the launch of...
Localism Bill published →
The Decentralisation and Localism Bill was introduced to parliament today by Eric Pickles, Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (CLG). The government’s stated intention is that the bill ‘will shift power from central government back into the hands of individuals, communities and councils.’ It is described as ‘A Bill
to make provision about the...
Three more LEPs approved →
Three more local enterprise partnerships were approved today by Vince Cable, Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS), and Eric Pickles, Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (CLG). The newly-approved partnerships cover
New Anglia (Norfolk and Suffolk)
the Black Country
Worcestershire
These join the 24 partnerships approved in October at the launch of the...
Localism Bill published →
The Decentralisation and Localism Bill was introduced to parliament today by Eric Pickles, Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (CLG). The government’s stated intention is that the bill ‘will shift power from central government back into the hands of individuals, communities and councils.’ It is described as ‘A Bill
to make provision about the...
Compact Voice challenges OCS over Commissioning... →
Compact Voice challenges OCS over Commissioning green paper consultation
Compact Voice, which champions the voluntary and community sector in matters concerning Compact compliance, has challenged the Office for Civil Society over the very short time being allowed for consultation on the Modernising Commissioning green paper, launched yesterday. The Compact agreement includes the principle of...
What sort of people stand for election? - report →
The 2010 Survey of Local Election Candidates has been published by Local Government Improvement and Development (formerly IDeA). It was conducted by the University of Plymouth’s Elections Centre and provides information about what sort of people stand as candidates in local goverment elections. The survey examines evidence from borough, district, county and unitary authorities. It...
A bill to promote 'social value'? →
Following the coalition government’s decision not to implement the Socio-economic duty defined in the Equality Act 2010, a new private member’s bill has been introduced which, if it becomes law, might go some way towards fulfilling a similar function.
The Public Services (Social Enterprise and Social Value) Bill was introduced by Chris White (pictured), Conservative MP for Warwick...
UPDATED: Localism Bill - publication date and... →
The government’s November progress update for the Department for Business, Innovation & Skills (BIS) has reported the Localism Bill will now be published on Thursday 9 December. Subsequently, however, a source in the House of Commons Stationery Office, responsible for the printing of the document, stated that the bill had been further delayed until Wednesday 15 December. The...
LEPs - update →
Areas that were left without approved proposals for forming local enterprise partenrships (LEPs) after the publication of the Local Growth white paper are continuing to revise their proposals. Approval seems imminent for some areas, while others still have some way to go. The Local Government Chronicle offers the following summary of the latest news:
Lancashire: a stand-off between the...
Coalition abandons compulsory gender pay gap... →
Following its decision not to implement the statutory Socio-economic Duty, the coalition government has now abandoned another provision of the Equality Act 2010. If implemented, section 78 of the Act would have required businesses to publish information about the gap between men’s and women’s pay. In an article in the The Guardian, Equalities minister Lynne Featherstone...
CLG committee to scrutinise cuts →
Parliament’s Communities and Local Government committee will hold a special hearing later this month, to examine the effects of spending cuts on poorer areas, according to Regeneration & Renewal. Committee chair Clive Betts, Labour MP for Sheffield South East, is quoted as saying that the committee specifically wanted to establish the extent to which the cuts will be ...
Government postpones renewed Compact... →
The renewed Compact, which the government promised would be accompanied by “increased accountability and transparency measures”, has been postponed indefinitely, according to a report in Third Sector. David Cameron made clear his support for the Compact in his Big Society launch speech on 18 May 2010. He stated, “One of the other elements we’ve been able to agree very...
Compact Voice intervenes in N Yorks dispute →
Compact Voice has intervened in the dispute arising from a demand from NHS North Yorkshire and York that 150 local voluntary and community sector (VCS) groups return £150,000 of funding it has already allocated to them. The NHS trust, which is seeking to reduce its £17.9 million overspend, wrote to the organisations on 19 October asking them to return funding for the period of 19 November...