Cockell: whole place budgets should expand to meet demand

Author: Johnathan Werran, The MJ - Nov 14, 2011

Council bosses have complained Whitehall resistance to developing and extending the community budgets programme is hindering attempts to boost local regeneration plans.

Only four councils will be invited to take part in the next set of community budget pilots, one involving two areas at neighbourhood level, the other a 'whole place' approach testing how funding for local services can be aggregated.

Chairman of the LGA, Cllr Sir Merrick Cockell said the Government should look to expand the programme to meet demand on a wide range of issues – a view backed last week in a report issued by the Commons communities and local government Committee.

Sir Merrick said: 'As the most trusted and efficient part of the public sector, it is right that councils are given the tools to tackle deprivation in the country’s most disadvantaged areas.

'The LGA is pressing Whitehall to allow councils keen to take up whole place budgets the ability to do so,' he added.

At the LGA Executive meeting yesterday - also the deadline for an estimated 100 councils submitting bids for the two pilot schemes - members expressed concern over the commitment of key government departments to supporting pooled funding arrangements.

Lib-Dem group leader Gerald Vernon-Jackson accused civil servants of being 'genetically programmed to resist at each and every opportunity' ministers attempts to devolve powers.

Explaining why his own authority Portsmouth City Council had chosen not to get involved with the second wave projects, Cllr Vernon Jackson said: 'There is no evidence that civil servants will allow ministers, under any government, to give up the power that they hold in Whitehall to come up with initiatives.'

Jules Pipe, Mayor of Hackney LBC dismissed as 'absolutely ludicrous' the limited scale of the two schemes, criticising reduced opportunities to share lessons and the amount of time wasted by councils compiling failed bids.

While admitting 'two of anything is just not sufficient', LGA chairman Sir Merrick Cockell said there had been a 'serious shift' in the government's view of the community budgets programme since the prime minister had picked the issue up as a top priority.

Sir Merrick announced he would have a second meeting next week with head of the troubled families unit, former 'Respect Tsar' Louise Casey.

In addition, he will hold high-level meetings with ministerial advisers and officials aimed at breaking down departmental silos and exploiting progress made by the pilot projects.

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