The government proposes to give local authorities more freedom and powers to meet the needs of their citizens and communities. Local authorities will be encouraged to develop neighbourhood charters setting out local standards and priorities; to manage services at the level of the neighbourhood; to work more closely with neighbourhood policing teams. Local people will receive more information about services and standards, and will be able to question and get a response from local councilors through a new service, Community Call for Action. Executive power will be invested in the leader of the council, and there will be three choices of leadership model: a directly elected mayor, a directly elected executive of councillors, or a leader elected by fellow councillors with a four year mandate. New training opportunities will be provided for councillors. The making of byelaws will be fully devolved to local authorities. The authorities will be encouraged to bring together local partners to help improve services, and to develop a delivery plan - the Local Area Agreement - setting out a single set of priorities for local partners, for the Sustainable Community Strategy that they are already required to prepare. The performance framework for local government will be simplified: there will be about 35 priorities for each area, with a set of some 200 outcome based indicators replacing the many hundreds of indicators currently required by central government. Ambitious efficiency gains will be required as part of the 2007 comprehensive spending review. The second volume shows how these proposals will apply to major local public service areas and cross-cutting issues: community safety; health and well-being; vulnerable people; children and families; climate change; and economic development, housing and planning.
This Command White Paper entitled "Communities in control" (Cm.7427, ISBN 9780101742726) sets out an agenda to enhance the power of communities and help people to meet their own priorities. A number of proposals are put forward seeking to devolve more power to citizens and away from both central and local government. The Paper is divided into 8 chapters: Chapter 1: The case for the people and the communities having more power; Chapter 2: Active citizens and the value of volunteering; Chapter 3: Access to information; Chapter 4: Having an influence; Chapter 5: Challenge - holding people acountable who exercise power; Chapter 6: Redress; Chapter 7: Standing for office; Chapter 8: Ownership and control. These chapters set out, from the perspective of individual citizens, seven key issues for developing empowerment in the local community. The proposed policies in this White Paper largely apply to England but UK proposals wil be implemented in consultation with the devolved administrations.
Government response to the Committee's 1st report, HCP 503, session 2014-15 (ISBN 9780215073396). Print and web pdfs available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications Web ISBN=9781474115803
The complexity of the formulae used by government departments to provide funding to local public bodies is partly down to the nature of the services being funded, and partly to the fact that the formulae attempt to achieve multiple objectives. The different approaches to formula funding have evolved over time, but key choices in the design and operation of the formulae remain open to question. Of the three funding arrangements on which it reports, the NAO concludes that the Department for Education and the Department for Communities and Local Government have not set out clearly, or explicitly prioritised, their multiple objectives for the design and distribution of Dedicated Schools Grant and Formula Grant. This prevents analysis of the extent to which the formulae represent the best way to satisfy objectives. Each of the formulae is grounded in an assessment of relative needs, but other aspects of their design differ. All of the funding arrangements include provisions to ensure funding stability. Stability reduces budget variation from year to year, making financial planning and stable service provision less problematic. But this has led to some local bodies being funded for extended periods significantly above or below needs-assessed levels. Population data are the biggest determinants of funding, and Departments use the most current data available. As many inputs are census-based, a quarter of those used in Formula Grant and ten per cent of those used for Primary Care Trust allocations, are based on data sources that are now ten or more years old.
This is the Government's strategy to tackle the housing shortage, boost the economy, create jobs and give people the opportunity to get on the housing ladder. It covers: help for home buyers; help for housebuilders; improving fairness in social housing; support for the private rented sector; action on empty homes; supporting older people to live independently. The strategy also proposes accelerating the release of public sector land with capacity to build up to 100,000 new homes by 2015, and support up to 200,000 construction and related jobs during development.
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