By Richard Johnstone | 28 October 2011
The next phase of the government’s Community Budget pilots has been criticised for its lack of ambition, by experts and the Opposition.
Under Community Budgets, various sources of funding for local services are pooled into one local pot. Current pilots are focused solely on working with families with complex problems, but new ‘whole place’ versions, to begin in pilot form at the end of next year, will cover all public services.
But shadow local government secretary Hilary Benn told Public Finance these trials amounted to little more than ‘tinkering’ and represented a ‘pale imitation’ of what was started by the Labour government under its Total Place programme.
He said: ‘Looking at what is being spent in an area is, of course, the right approach. But we had a much more ambitious scheme, the government is tinkering around the edges.’
Two councils will take on ‘whole place’ Community Budgets. Interested councils have to submit bids for the whole place project by November 10. Test areas will be selected before the end of this year.
John Tizard, director of the Centre for Public Service Partnerships and the former programme lead for the Worcestershire Total Place pilot, said the two pilots ‘seems to be a very small number given both the potential from the Total Place pilots and the Community Budgets initiative’.
He asked: ‘How do you select the two, of all the places in the country, that will give you a good enough spread to be valuable?’
Tizard also called for all central government spending departments, particularly the Department for Work and Pensions, ‘to allow their agencies to flexibly use money in a different way’ so they can play a full part in the plans.
Meanwhile, the head of the Local Government Association has called on the government’s new Troubled Families Team to ensure the co-operation of central government in the pilots when the team announces its work plan this month.
LGA chair Sir Merrick Cockell said that the work of the first 16 schemes had shown ‘that it can be hard work securing the commitment of all local agencies of national government’.
In these, funds from housing, the police, the NHS and council adults’ and children’s services are pooled to tackle social problems around dysfunctional families, and 110 more will be in place by 2012/13.
Cockell called for the Troubled Families Team, set up by Prime Minister David Cameron last month, to ensure ‘troubled families are as important to every Whitehall department’ as they are to councils.
It will be crucial to know ‘how work on Community Budgets is going to mesh with the work of the government’s new unit’, Cockell said.
The team will be headed by former victims’ commissioner Louise Casey.
The next phase of the government’s Community Budget pilots has been criticised for its lack of ambition, by experts and the Opposition.
Under Community Budgets, various sources of funding for local services are pooled into one local pot. Current pilots are focused solely on working with families with complex problems, but new ‘whole place’ versions, to begin in pilot form at the end of next year, will cover all public services.
But shadow local government secretary Hilary Benn told Public Finance these trials amounted to little more than ‘tinkering’ and represented a ‘pale imitation’ of what was started by the Labour government under its Total Place programme.
He said: ‘Looking at what is being spent in an area is, of course, the right approach. But we had a much more ambitious scheme, the government is tinkering around the edges.’
Two councils will take on ‘whole place’ Community Budgets. Interested councils have to submit bids for the whole place project by November 10. Test areas will be selected before the end of this year.
John Tizard, director of the Centre for Public Service Partnerships and the former programme lead for the Worcestershire Total Place pilot, said the two pilots ‘seems to be a very small number given both the potential from the Total Place pilots and the Community Budgets initiative’.
He asked: ‘How do you select the two, of all the places in the country, that will give you a good enough spread to be valuable?’
Tizard also called for all central government spending departments, particularly the Department for Work and Pensions, ‘to allow their agencies to flexibly use money in a different way’ so they can play a full part in the plans.
Meanwhile, the head of the Local Government Association has called on the government’s new Troubled Families Team to ensure the co-operation of central government in the pilots when the team announces its work plan this month.
LGA chair Sir Merrick Cockell said that the work of the first 16 schemes had shown ‘that it can be hard work securing the commitment of all local agencies of national government’.
In these, funds from housing, the police, the NHS and council adults’ and children’s services are pooled to tackle social problems around dysfunctional families, and 110 more will be in place by 2012/13.
Cockell called for the Troubled Families Team, set up by Prime Minister David Cameron last month, to ensure ‘troubled families are as important to every Whitehall department’ as they are to councils.
It will be crucial to know ‘how work on Community Budgets is going to mesh with the work of the government’s new unit’, Cockell said.
The team will be headed by former victims’ commissioner Louise Casey.
