Local Government White Paper...

[EAS]

From todays Heritage Link:

Local Government White Paper

On 26th October the Department for Communities and Local Government published its new vision of local government, the long awaited Strong and Prosperous Communities - The Local Government White Paper.

'Our vision is of revitalised local authorities, working with their partners, to reshape public services around the citizens and communities that use them.'

Proposals under the section Responsive Services and Empowered Communities include strengthening the ability of councillors to act as champions for their community via a new Community Call for Action. This will give local people a more powerful voice to question decisions taken by their council, with councillors able to raise all issues from housing, to leisure facilities to waste management with a Council's Overview and Scrutiny Committee on residents' behalf. This will bring all council services in line with proposed Home Office legislation on community safety.

The White Paper also promotes better and timelier information on the quality of local services, including annual publication of local authorities' performance against national outcome indicators and a set of indicators on citizen satisfaction.

Particularly notable in a heritage context is the review of barriers to increasing community management and ownership of under-used local community assets so that these better serve local communities, with a new fund to support local authorities refurbishing assets for transfer to community groups. This follows the ODPM Report Community Ownership and Management of Assets.

The White Paper has nine chapters and annexes covering responsive services and empowered communities, effective, accountable and responsive local government, strong cities and strategic regions, local government as strategic leader and place-shaper, performance framework, efficiency in transforming local services and community cohesion.

The webpage

http://www.communities.gov.uk/index.asp?id=1137789

has links to all documents, including those published alongside the White Paper, such as the regulatory impact assessment for the white paper, consultation responses on local strategic partnerships and inspection, and related research papers. Back

LGA comment on White Paper

Commenting on the Local Government White Paper, Sandy Bruce-Lockhart, the Chairman of the Local Government Association, which represents more than 400 councils in England and Wales found the White Paper 'encouraging' and a significant step on long road to devolution. 'The White Paper reflects the growing confidence in, and competence of, local government and the belief that the best way to deliver the best services to local people is at a local level.'

On the White Paper proposals on the community and voluntary sector, he added

'The voluntary and community sector plays a considerable role in developing the ability of local people to participate in society, local democracy and decision-making both through direct participation and as their representatives. Many local authorities have devolved and set up Service Level Agreements with voluntary and community organisations for a wide range of their work including social issues, work training and environmental enhancement. For its part, the voluntary and community sector needs to do more to address the challenges associated with governance, probity and financial stewardship for smaller voluntary organisations and less formally established community groups.'

The LGA will be working both with central departments and with other partner organisations in follow up work to the White Paper, including the Regional Development Agencies, the Learning and Skills Council, Confederation of British Industry, National Council of Voluntary Organisations, Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary Organisations, the NHS Confederation and the National Association of Voluntary and Community Action. Back

Heritage Link says Make Consultation Really Matter

In response to the Local Government White Paper Heritage Link publishes the full report of its research Making Consultation Matter. If constructive participation is to be realised through this White Paper, the issues arising for planning consultation experience need to be addressed.

Anthea Case Chairman of Heritage Link said 'The country is fortunate in having a lively and enthusiastic network of community groups to stand up for our heritage and the local environment. Heritage Link urges central and local government to involve them more in the planning decisions that affect all our lives.'

Heritage Link's research gathered through nearly 200 local groups in 2005 indicates serious concerns that local planning authorities lack the staff, skills, capacity and experience to deal effectively with Government expectations for community involvement. Heritage groups want to be involved. 52% believe they can make a positive difference to the quality of local and regional planning outcomes. But Highways Proposal consultations were perceived as the least satisfactory with consultations on Regional Spatial Strategies also scoring very low.

Heritage Link has written to potential partners to enlist support to implement a range of recommendations: to DCLG over the potential of the Local Government White Paper to improve participation and to use the Planning Delivery Grant to support the related skills and competencies required by local government.

Published on 31st October, the Full Report undertaken by Heritage Link's Land-Use Planning Working Group was produced with support from English Heritage to inform Heritage Counts 2006. In addition to the Full Report, responses from the national, regional and local societies are catalogued in the Appendices.

See

www.heritagelink.org.uk/docs/MCM_full.pdf

www.heritagelink.org.uk/docs/MCM_ReportAppendices.pdf