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Scheme	Allocation 2007-08 (£ million)	Purpose of funding
Neighbourhood Renewal Funding (NRF)	14.938	To target resources to improve services in the most disadvantaged areas to narrow the gap between them and the rest of the country.
		NRF is prioritised to activities that contribute to the achievement of the Public Service Agreement (PSA) targets within the 4 LLAA Themes:
		Children and Young People
		Healthier Communities and Older People
		Safer and Stronger Communities
		Economic Development and Enterprise
Local Enterprise Growth Initiative (LEGI)	4.770	To release the economic potential of the most deprived local areas through enterprise, thereby boosting local incomes and employment opportunities and building sustainable communities.
		By 2010, the programme aims:
		to create over 500 new businesses within areas of greatest disadvantage in Leeds, with two thirds of these started by local residents
		to attract 75 new businesses into these areas and provide assistance to help a further 650 existing businesses to develop
		in the long term: to stimulate a culture of enterprise, attract investment and create over 1,100 jobs.
Safer and Stronger Communities Fund (SSCF): Neighbourhood Element	1.7430	The Neighbourhood Element provides funding to improve outcomes for people living in the most disadvantaged neighbourhoods—those that fall within the 3 per cent. most deprived nationally. The funding is targeted to achieve the SSCF outcome: ‘to improve the quality of life for people living in disadvantaged neighbourhoods and to ensure that service providers are more responsive to neighbourhood needs and improve their delivery’.
		Key elements of the programme include:-
		Dedicated environmental management capacity;
		Dedicated community safety capacity linked to Neighbourhood Policing;
		Empty property team;
		Support for young people and vulnerable families;
		Capital resources for problem sites and public realm improvement works;
		Neighbourhood Management staff to lead and co-ordinate activity;
		Community engagement workers .
Safer and Stronger Communities Fund (SSCF): Cleaner, Safer, Greener	1.130	Focussed upon the 3 per cent. most deprived neighbourhood, this funding will support a range of improvement works to deliver:
		visible on-street environmental improvements such as repairs to footpaths and highways, enhancing binyards, improving boundary treatments, and enhancing greenspaces;
		security measures such as the target hardening of properties vulnerable to burglary, dawn to dusk lighting targeted at areas with high numbers of older residents, gating schemes to provide security and prevent anti-social activities, and the boarding up empty properties;
		Activity programmes are based upon a neighbourhood assessment and Neighbourhood Improvement Plans based on meaningful consultation.
Access to Employment; Single Pot Funding	1.11	This funding provides targeted support to help BME residents, refugees, migrant workers, claimants aged over 50, lone parents and incapacity benefit recipients into work. Support will be provided through:
		job brokerage programmes that better link individuals with recruiting employers;
		work to address barriers to the labour market faced by individuals and subsequent support required to assist them;
		work with employers to provide employment opportunities for disadvantaged residents in growth sectors that are experiencing recruitment difficulties, including financial and professional services, construction and healthcare;
		innovative and pilot activity to develop new methods of working and good practice

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Details can be found on the following websites:

www.leeds.gov.uk

www.neighbourhoods.gov.uk

www.leedsinitiative.org

Public Expenditure: Valuation

Mr. Pickles: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government if she will (a) break down by subheading and (b) indicate the purpose of the public expenditure under the heading of valuation services listed on page 37 of her Department's resource accounts for 2006-07 (HC 836). [157466]

John Healey: The purpose of the spending on this line in the resource account is to enable the Valuation Office Agency (VOA) to carry out valuations of properties to form the basis on which council tax and national non domestic rates bills can be calculated.

The sum is used by the VOA to cover salary, accommodation and other costs, the latter including all the information systems, processes, technology and training necessary to support the maintenance of some 25 million entries in the local taxation lists.

Regeneration

Mr. Pickles: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government which localities are zoned as growth areas; and on what date each was designated as such. [157499]

Yvette Cooper: Regional Planning Guidance for London and the rest of the South East (RPG9) in 2000 identified the potential for significant growth in the Thames Gateway, Milton Keynes-South Midlands, Ashford and London-Stansted-Cambridge areas. Following studies into the potential for growth in these areas, the Government confirmed on 18 July 2002 that it would work with regional and local partners in each of these four growth areas to establish where, at what scale, and how quickly growth could be achieved. The Sustainable Communities Plan, ‘Sustainable Communities: Building for the Future’, published on 5 February 2003, announced confirmation of Thames Gateway and the three other growth areas together with funding support and said that working with regional planning bodies and local authorities Government would take forward growth plans for those areas through revisions of regional planning guidance, in the regional planning process.

Mr. Pickles: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government what areas are designated as new growth point partnership areas. [157500]

Yvette Cooper: On 24 October 2006, 29 local authorities and partnerships were named as New Growth Points commencing a long-term partnership for growth with Government.

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New growth points
East Midlands
Three cities and three counties	Derby city council, Derbyshire CC, Leicester city council, Leicestershire CC, Nottingham city council, Nottinghamshire CC
Grantham	South Kesteven DC and Lincolnshire CC
Lincoln	Lincolnshire CC, City of Lincoln council, North Kesteven DC and West Lindsey DC
Newark on Trent	Newark and Sherwood DC
East of England
Haven Gateway	Babergh DC, Colchester BC, Essex CC, Ipswich BC, Suffolk Coastal DC, Suffolk CC, Tendring DC
Norwich	Norwich City Council, Norfolk CC, Broadland DC, South Norfolk council, the Broads Authority
Thetford	Breckland council, Thetford Town council, Norfolk CC
South East
Basingstoke	Basingstoke and Deane BC
Didcot	South Oxfordshire DC
Maidstone	Maidstone BC
Oxford	Oxford city council
Partnership for Urban South Hampshire	East Hampshire DC, Eastleigh BC, Fareham BC, Gosport BC, Hampshire CC, Havant BC, New Forest DC, Portsmouth city council, Southampton city council, Test Valley BC, Winchester DC
Reading	Reading BC
Reigate and Banstead	Reigate and Banstead BC
South West
Exeter and East Devon	Exeter city council, East Devon DC and Devon CC
Plymouth	Plymouth city council
Poole	The borough of Poole
Swindon	Swindon BC
Taunton	Taunton Deane BC and Somerset CC
Torbay	Torbay council
Truro	Carrick DC and Cornwall CC
West of England	Bristol city council, Bath and North East Somerset council, North Somerset council and South Gloucestershire council
West Midlands
Birmingham and Solihull	Birmingham city council and Solihull MBC
Coventry	Coventry city council
Telford	The borough of Telford and Wrekin
East Staffordshire	East Staffordshire BC
Hereford	Herefordshire council
Shrewsbury and Atcham	Shrewsbury and Atcham BC and Shropshire CC
Worcester	Worcestershire CC, Worcester city council, Wychavon DC and Malvern Hills DC

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Regional Authorities: Renewable Energy

Gregory Barker: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government which regional authorities have included a Merton planning rule requiring onsite renewable energy in new developments in their regional spatial strategies. [159367]

Yvette Cooper: All updates of regional spatial strategies provide a supportive framework for using local renewable and low carbon energy in new development. The policies included by regional planning bodies in their draft revisions have varied in their approach including on the expected content of local level plans, technological preference and size of development to which the policy would be applied.

Regional Government

Mr. Pickles: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government pursuant to the answer to the hon. member for Beckenham of 25 July 2007, Official Report, column 751W, on regional government, how many full-time equivalent staff in her Department are assisting each of the regional ministers. [157555]

John Healey: At present, there is 1.0 full-time equivalent staff within the Department that is supporting the development of the Regional Minister role. In addition, those providing direct support within each Government office to their respective Regional Minister are as follows:

	Full-time equivalent
Right hon. Tessa Jowell MP (London)	1.0
Jonathan Shaw MP (South East)	2.0
Ben Bradshaw MP (South West)	2.5
Barbara Follett MP (East)	2.0
Gillian Merron MP (East Midlands)	3.5
Liam Byrne MP (West Midlands)	1.0
Right hon. Beverley Hughes MP (North West)	2.5
Right hon. Nick Brown MP (North East)	1.0
Caroline Flint (Yorkshire and the Humber)	1.0

All posts are a redeployment of existing GO resources, not new posts.

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