By Richard Johnstone | 30
September 2011
Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg will give his personal backing to plans to extend Community Budgets, confronting those Whitehall departments that are ‘digging in’ against the changes, a senior Liberal Democrat has told Public Finance.
Richard Kemp, the former leader of the Liberal Democrats in the Local Government Association, has said that the move towards Community Budgets represents the ‘one big thing’ that remains in the government’s localism plans that has not yet been legislated for.
He told PF that Clegg will help him launch a ‘winning with localism’ campaign this month, which will aim to introduce ‘a culture change’ in local government to ensure they take advantage of the new general power of competence in the Localism Bill.
This was backed up by Clegg’s chief of staff, Norman Lamb, who confirmed that the party plans to be ‘proactive’ about ensuring reforms such as localism work.
‘One of the things that the mid-term review, [looking at] what the government does in the second half of the Parliament, is about is making sure that the big commitments we made at the start, one of which was about localism, actually happen in practice.
‘As passionate believers in local power we have to be at the forefront of that commitment,’ Lamb said.
Kemp said that the launch would see Clegg ‘take localism back’ into the Cabinet Office and ensure that it progresses. This would include oversight of Community Budgets. This programme pools various strands of Whitehall funding into a single pot, which councils can use to tackle social problems around families with complex social needs. Sixteen community budget pilots are currently under way and a further 110 will be in place by 2012/13.
However, Kemp warned that ‘progress is slow’ and called on ‘[Chief Secretary to the Treasury] Danny Alexander and Nick Clegg to get behind and give it a big boot’ to make sure it happens.
Speaking to PF at the Liberal Democrat party conference, he said: ‘I know he [Clegg] wants to take back the localist agenda. What you’ll see is Nick Clegg getting much more interested in this range of issues and taking a leadership role.
‘There are people up to this task and they need to turn their attention to it. If they don’t then they won’t realise the plans for better service delivery.’
Kemp also backed the government’s plans for localism, and said that it was now crucial to implement the changes both in the Localism Bill and through the government’s controversial health and police reforms.
He said: ‘If I look at the Localism Bill, I like 85% of it, so I don’t like 15% of it. The police bill [Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill] I like everything in it apart from the elected police commissioners, so probably about the same percentage.
‘That’s why I’m saying to LibDems “get on with the bits you do like”. There are always compromises in government. There’s enough in all these Bills for them to get on with, so my demand to them is that they do.’
A leading LibDem think-tank backed the idea for Clegg to get more involved in localism issues. Chris Nicholson, chief executive of the think-tank CentreForum, said it was important to have a champion to ensure that localism happens in practice, adding that ‘it is an obvious thing for Nick Clegg to be championing’.
Local government minister Andrew Stunell told PF that Community Budgets are ‘very much focused on getting decision-making from Whitehall and into town halls’. He said that he wanted ‘government departments to play a full and active role in bringing it together’.
Stunell said he was ‘not aware of any problems’ in this happening, adding that he believed councils were ‘going to jump in and take advantage of the new freedoms we’re giving them’.
Lamb also told PF that the party’s Facing the Future policy development programme, which he launched last month, had identified policies on public services as ‘one of the areas that we have to develop’.
The policy process will look at ‘various challenges’ including ‘the cost of providing high-quality care and pensions for an ageing population’, he added.
Conference delegates backed the conclusions of economist Andrew Dilnot’s review as a basis for social care reform, and Lamb added: ‘It’s an enormous challenge, and how you cope in times of austerity with rising costs while maintaining and, if possible, improving care, means you have to innovate. So there has to be a lot of focus on that.’
He also said that the party would ‘think about what we will say in light of the changes that the government has made’ on the NHS.
‘I’ll be saying that we’ve got to be leading the debate with a clear vision for the NHS – preventing ill health, helping people care better for themselves and integrating care for people with chronic conditions. That’s all been lacking in this rather sterile debate [on the proposed reforms] and I will be arguing that.’
In his keynote speech to the conference on September 21, Clegg reaffirmed his commitment to the coalition’s deficit reduction programme. The decision to clear the structural deficit this Parliament was ‘agonisingly difficult’, but ‘right’, he said. Clegg spoke as public finance figures revealed that net borrowing rose to a high for August of £15.9bn.
Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg will give his personal backing to plans to extend Community Budgets, confronting those Whitehall departments that are ‘digging in’ against the changes, a senior Liberal Democrat has told Public Finance.
Richard Kemp, the former leader of the Liberal Democrats in the Local Government Association, has said that the move towards Community Budgets represents the ‘one big thing’ that remains in the government’s localism plans that has not yet been legislated for.He told PF that Clegg will help him launch a ‘winning with localism’ campaign this month, which will aim to introduce ‘a culture change’ in local government to ensure they take advantage of the new general power of competence in the Localism Bill.
This was backed up by Clegg’s chief of staff, Norman Lamb, who confirmed that the party plans to be ‘proactive’ about ensuring reforms such as localism work.
‘One of the things that the mid-term review, [looking at] what the government does in the second half of the Parliament, is about is making sure that the big commitments we made at the start, one of which was about localism, actually happen in practice.
‘As passionate believers in local power we have to be at the forefront of that commitment,’ Lamb said.
Kemp said that the launch would see Clegg ‘take localism back’ into the Cabinet Office and ensure that it progresses. This would include oversight of Community Budgets. This programme pools various strands of Whitehall funding into a single pot, which councils can use to tackle social problems around families with complex social needs. Sixteen community budget pilots are currently under way and a further 110 will be in place by 2012/13.
However, Kemp warned that ‘progress is slow’ and called on ‘[Chief Secretary to the Treasury] Danny Alexander and Nick Clegg to get behind and give it a big boot’ to make sure it happens.
Speaking to PF at the Liberal Democrat party conference, he said: ‘I know he [Clegg] wants to take back the localist agenda. What you’ll see is Nick Clegg getting much more interested in this range of issues and taking a leadership role.
‘There are people up to this task and they need to turn their attention to it. If they don’t then they won’t realise the plans for better service delivery.’
Kemp also backed the government’s plans for localism, and said that it was now crucial to implement the changes both in the Localism Bill and through the government’s controversial health and police reforms.
He said: ‘If I look at the Localism Bill, I like 85% of it, so I don’t like 15% of it. The police bill [Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill] I like everything in it apart from the elected police commissioners, so probably about the same percentage.
‘That’s why I’m saying to LibDems “get on with the bits you do like”. There are always compromises in government. There’s enough in all these Bills for them to get on with, so my demand to them is that they do.’
A leading LibDem think-tank backed the idea for Clegg to get more involved in localism issues. Chris Nicholson, chief executive of the think-tank CentreForum, said it was important to have a champion to ensure that localism happens in practice, adding that ‘it is an obvious thing for Nick Clegg to be championing’.
Local government minister Andrew Stunell told PF that Community Budgets are ‘very much focused on getting decision-making from Whitehall and into town halls’. He said that he wanted ‘government departments to play a full and active role in bringing it together’.
Stunell said he was ‘not aware of any problems’ in this happening, adding that he believed councils were ‘going to jump in and take advantage of the new freedoms we’re giving them’.
Lamb also told PF that the party’s Facing the Future policy development programme, which he launched last month, had identified policies on public services as ‘one of the areas that we have to develop’.
The policy process will look at ‘various challenges’ including ‘the cost of providing high-quality care and pensions for an ageing population’, he added.
Conference delegates backed the conclusions of economist Andrew Dilnot’s review as a basis for social care reform, and Lamb added: ‘It’s an enormous challenge, and how you cope in times of austerity with rising costs while maintaining and, if possible, improving care, means you have to innovate. So there has to be a lot of focus on that.’
He also said that the party would ‘think about what we will say in light of the changes that the government has made’ on the NHS.
‘I’ll be saying that we’ve got to be leading the debate with a clear vision for the NHS – preventing ill health, helping people care better for themselves and integrating care for people with chronic conditions. That’s all been lacking in this rather sterile debate [on the proposed reforms] and I will be arguing that.’
In his keynote speech to the conference on September 21, Clegg reaffirmed his commitment to the coalition’s deficit reduction programme. The decision to clear the structural deficit this Parliament was ‘agonisingly difficult’, but ‘right’, he said. Clegg spoke as public finance figures revealed that net borrowing rose to a high for August of £15.9bn.
