Written evidence submitted by the Department
for Communities and Local Government
SUMMARY
1. Over the last decade, our economy became more
and more unbalanced, unstable and unfair. We are now paying for
those mistakes with the highest level of public debt on record.
2. The Coalition Government's first priority
is restoring the health of the national economy by reducing the
deficit and returning the UK to sustainable, balanced economic
growth. Every place has the potential to grow, but growth is harder
to achieve in some places than others. Regeneration is a vital
component of our approach to growth and to rebalancing the economy.
3. The scale of public deficit means that previous
models of regeneration which relied heavily on public sector subsidy
are now simply unaffordable. Moreover, previous approaches were
often characterised by bureaucracy and top-down directives, and
failed to respond to local circumstances, needs and priorities.
These approaches didn't work. Many places are overly reliant on
the public sector and still face significant challenges. We need
a new approach.
4. The Government is putting local partners in
the driving seat—providing the right mix of incentives and
tools to enable local residents, councils, businesses and civic
organisations to regenerate and grow their area as they see fit.
We will play an enabling role—reforming and decentralising;
providing incentives for growth; removing barriers; and making
strategic investments to provide vital infrastructure for growth
and regeneration.
5. This approach will better deliver local regeneration
and growth. It is now for local partners to respond and determine
how they use the regeneration toolkit1 to address local
priorities.
INTRODUCTION
6. The Government aspires to a future where local
communities, councils, business and social enterprises come together
to agree priorities for their area, and work in partnership to
drive forward their plans for regeneration—corralling resources,
and working collaboratively with local service providers to improve
the lives and opportunities of local people and unlock growth.
7. On 31 January 2011, Local Government Minister
Grant Shapps and Communities Minister Andrew Stunell outlined
the Coalition Government's new approach to regeneration. Regeneration
to enable growth[65]
sets out how the Government is putting residents, local businesses,
local authorities and civil society organisations in the driving
seat. It also describes a toolkit of powers, flexibilities, rewards
and incentives we are providing that can help drive local regeneration
and growth.
8. The Select Committee announced their inquiry
into regeneration a few days later. The Government considers this
helpful timing as we are keen to hear from others what else we
might do to support the localist approach to ensure that local
regeneration can contribute as much as possible to national economic
growth.
9. There is very little domestic policy that
does not in some way support regeneration and growth—housing,
planning, employment, transport, skills, business support, environment,
civil society, health, crime prevention; they all have a role
to play. In turn, regeneration and growth can support much other
domestic policy, providing the economic and structural improvement
that supports health and wellbeing. The toolkit underpinning the
Government's approach to regeneration therefore features elements
from many different government departments. Accordingly, this
evidence, whilst submitted by Ministers of the Department for
Communities and Local Government, reflects this cross-government
approach and is presented on behalf of central government
as a whole.
THE COALITION
GOVERNMENT'S
COMMITMENT TO
REGENERATION TO
ENABLE GROWTH
10. The Coalition Government's first priority
is restoring the health of the national economy by reducing the
deficit and supporting growth. Economic growth is essential if
we are to tackle unemployment, poverty, poor health and inequality
and improve standards of living for a growing population.
11. A strong national economy depends on the
strength and vitality of local economies across the country, and
the Local Growth White Paper[66]
set out the Government's strategy to encourage locally-driven
growth that is sustainable and fair. Where a local area is declining
or has suffered and not recovered from past decline, its problems—which
often include worklessness, poor health, poor environment, and
high crime—are costly to manage, offsetting the contributions
of other more successful places. For example, the Marmot review[67]
reported that health inequalities were costing around £52
billion a year in lost productivity, reduced tax revenue and higher
welfare payments. In economic terms, declining and static local
economies therefore act as a drag on the performance of the UK
economy as a whole.
12. We therefore need every part of the country
to fulfil its potential if we are to maximise national economic
growth. Every place has the potential to grow, but growth may
be harder for some areas to achieve. Regeneration plays a vital
role by addressing local failures in the land market, labour market
and capital market which in turn remove market barriers that prevent
economic growth.
WHY DO
WE NEED
A NEW
APPROACH?
13. Over the past 10-15 years regeneration became
overly reliant on large-scale direct public sector investment,
and this was not only unsustainable, but there is anecdotal evidence
that it also may have discouraged private investment. For example,
studies have shown that (a) regeneration can raise land prices,
through landowners' "hope value", which increases risk
for private sector investors,[68]
and (b) the complexity, and bureaucratic nature of public sector
led regeneration partnerships can act as a strong disincentive
to private sector investment.[69]
Moreover, the recession, the scale of public deficit, and the
resulting squeeze on public finances mean previous models of regeneration
are now simply unaffordable.
14. That said, even if funding conditions were
more favourable, we wouldn't pursue the same model. The limitations
of previous approaches to regeneration signal the need for
a new approach:
— Modest
results
10 years of intense investment brought
some positive changes to deprived areas and neighbourhoods, but
these improvements were relatively modest despite favourable economic
conditions. The gap has narrowed but not closed.[70]
Today many places are overly reliant on the public sector and
still face significant challenges in spite of years of intensive
regeneration funding—in particular ex-industrial areas which,
despite significant regeneration investment, continue to face
long term decline, and much higher unemployment rates than elsewhere
in England.
— Failure
to tailor to local circumstances
The previous Government relied too heavily
on direction and control from Whitehall. Evaluation of
the New Deal for Communities[71]
suggested that the initial top-down requirement for a delivery
plan containing target outcomes for worklessness, health, education,
crime, housing/ physical environment and community was unrealistic
and encouraged spreading resources too thinly, without due regard
to local circumstances and priorities.
— Failure
to involve local people
In the past, too many people felt that
regeneration and growth were "done to" them rather
than being something they were part of. This caused resentment
and disengagement.[72]
Regeneration partnerships have often lacked meaningful community
representation, and the needs of local residents have been overlooked.[73],[74]
— Bureaucracy
Too often, we have seen multiple activities
and funding streams going into the same area, each with its
own silo bureaucracy and reporting arrangements. For example,
research in Liverpool in 2006[75]
identified over 30 different regeneration initiatives, each with
different funding sources and structures.
THE NEW
APPROACH—CONNECTING
LOCAL GROWTH
AND REGENERATION
TO DELIVER
LONG TERM
SUSTAINABLE GROWTH
15. The Government's approach to policy making
and public services is to decentralise decision making to the
lowest appropriate level—to individuals, public service
professionals, neighbourhoods, communities, democratically accountable
local authorities, and other local institutions—and give
them maximum scope to come up with solutions that meet the needs
of their own localities.
16. Decentralisation should result in improved
outcomes:
— Higher
Growth
— By
Decentralising to Individuals and Households
Individuals and households, and the choices they make to improve
their wellbeing, drive the market. Opportunities for growth are
best created when policies are designed to provide individuals
and households with the capability to make the choices that are
best for them. This market driven approach ensures that providers
must compete and innovate to meet those preferences.
— By
Decentralising to Communities
Communities can contribute to growth by strengthening and building
"social capital" (such as community goodwill and trust).
Social capital is built when policies bring people together as
communities and networks to establish trust and cooperation. This
can increase wellbeing, but also provides the trust and relationships
between consumers and providers that can enable economic growth.
— By
Decentralising to Local Government
Local governments can contribute to growth by tailoring policy
solutions to best support the local needs of individuals, households
and communities. Society and the economy grow better when governance
provides the fiscal, administrative and political frameworks that
best reflect people's preferences. Experimentation and innovation
in local service delivery can also result as different places
try to find solutions through different approaches in different
areas.
— Improved
Services
Decentralisation can help deliver better quality, more efficient
and responsive public services by removing unnecessary and expensive
bureaucratic burdens, reducing prescription, increasing choice
and transparency, and better aligning services with user preferences.
— Greater
Civic Participation
Decentralisation will give every citizen
the power to participate and change the services provided to them
through better information, new rights, greater choice and strengthening
accountability via the ballot box. Engagement of the local community
can bring benefits for those who get involved and can contribute
to more successful outcomes for local communities.
17. The result of this process of decentralisation
will be that individuals and communities will increasingly take
responsibility for improving their own area, as part of helping
to build the Big Society. Government's role will therefore
be:
— to
set the national policy framework within which other actors can
best perform their role; and
— to
support, where necessary, the transition by providing people and
communities with the necessary rights and tools to information,
to influence services, and to hold service providers and institutions
to account.
18. Our new approach to regeneration builds on
lessons about what does and doesn't work:
— By
including regeneration as part of our agenda for economic growth,
we are ensuring that regeneration strategies link people to the
opportunities brought by economic growth so are more likely to
deliver lasting change to peoples' lives. Evidence shows that
regeneration strategies are more effective if they consider the
needs of local people in terms of skills, mobility between places
and other barriers to work, in addition to investment in infrastructure
and the quality and environment of a place, where appropriate.[76]
— By
removing top-down requirements and increasing local control, we
are ensuring that local people, not Whitehall, will shape the
future of their area, and that regeneration and local growth are
defined in a way that best suits local circumstance. Evidence
demonstrates the importance of locally designed and delivered
interventions which can take into account local conditions and
address locally specific barriers to people finding work.[77]
— By
tackling bureaucracy and bringing an end to top-down reporting
requirements, we are ensuring more efficient use of resources.
— Increased
funding flexibility will allow local partners to channel resources
to address their priorities. Removing ring fencing from funding
has helped local authorities take a more strategic approach to
regeneration.[78]
— A range
of measures are being provided to support private sector investment
and engagement in driving economic growth and rebalancing the
economy (see paragraph 25).
— And
Local Enterprise Partnerships will work across boundaries so that
interventions to drive local economic growth can take account
of the wider economic context.[79]
The partnerships established so far are already setting out plans,
for example, to attract investment, boost tourism, or strengthen
transport links.
19. It is not for Government to identify which
areas need regeneration, or define what it is, what it should
look like, or what measures should be used to drive it. As guardians
of taxpayers' money, neither is it for us to throw money at a
problem when other solutions or funding sources could be found,
nor to try to artificially hold back the inevitable evolution
of communities.
20. Instead, we believe that it is Government's
role to:
— reform
and decentralise—giving local partners
in every area the freedom to agree priorities and define any plans
to regenerate and grow their area, and providing them with a toolkit
of powers, tools and flexibilities they can use to drive their
plans forward, and the information they need to hold local institutions
to account;
— provide
powerful incentives for growth;
— listen
to and consider whether it can assist in removing any barriers
that hinder local ambitions; and
— provide
targeted investment in vital infrastructure to support
growth and regeneration and aid transition, and in those people
and places needing most support.
21. Regeneration to enable growth sets
out more detail on this approach, including the Government policies
and programmes that are helping to deliver it. In this way, Government
aims to give all areas the opportunity to deliver local
growth and regeneration. It is now up to local partners to
respond and to decide how they use this toolkit to address
their local priorities.
DELIVERING THE
APPROACH
22. We should not be fooled into thinking we
are starting from scratch here—local partners have not waited
for Government to give them permission to take ownership of their
local area. Many community groups and partnerships are already
active across the country, and have been for years. The Baytree
Renewal Area in Manchester for example, where Grant Shapps and
Andrew Stunell outlined the Government's approach to regeneration1
on 31 January, was established as the result of a campaign by
the local residents. The physical improvements brought to the
housing and streetscape were designed in partnership with local
people, and residents also successfully bid for lottery funding
to convert an overgrown allotment into a children's wildlife garden
and adventure area.
23. What is new is the toolkit of flexibilities,
tools, powers and incentives that Government is now providing
that can be used to support locally-led regeneration and growth.
The high levels of take up of many of these opportunities show
how welcome they are and how ready local partners are to take
advantage of them. For example there were 87 applications for
the Neighbourhood Plan front-runners, and there were 28 applications
to be one of the eight Community Infrastructure Levy front-runners.
24. Regeneration is more likely to succeed if
the conditions for economic growth are met. Through the Growth
Review, the Government is undertaking a root and branch review
of how growth can be accelerated. Measures announced in last week's
Budget included:
— Government
will establish 21 new Enterprise Zones in Local Enterprise
Partnership areas in England. Through a combination of fiscal
incentives, reduced planning restrictions and other measures,
these Zones will help kick start new investment and drive the
creation of new private sector jobs in the areas they cover. The
Budget named 11 Local Enterprise Partnerships who have been asked
to come forward to identify Enterprise Zones within their boundaries,
and announced that a further ten will be identified through competition
amongst all other Local Enterprise Partnerships.
— The
planning system will be reformed and simplified through
a range of measures:
— The
current suite of National Planning Policy Framework documents
will be condensed into a concise easy to use document.
— The
new Framework will be inherently pro-growth, underpinned by a
powerful new presumption in favour of sustainable development.
This will ensure that the default answer to development and growth
should be "yes" unless this would compromise the key
sustainable development principles set out in the National Planning
Policy Framework.
— A range
of measures to simplify the planning process will be consulted
on.
— Piloting
the use of land auctions on public sector land—auctions
of parcels of land with planning permission to increase competition
and bring greater certainty and reduced risk for developers.
— Government
is amending the stamp duty treatment of bulk purchases
of residential property to boost the private rented sector and
house building activity by attracting investment from other funding
sources besides mortgage finance.
— Government
will accelerate the release of public sector land to encourage
new homes and jobs. The Homes and Communities Agency is leading
the way, making use of Build Now, Pay Later techniques
to speed up delivery and ensure value for money. It will shortly
announce the first tranche of available sites, with a comprehensive
strategy for bringing more land forward being published in May.
In the future, Departments holding land will publish their release
programmes and be held to account for delivery of new homes and
jobs created as a result.
— A range
of measures to support small and medium enterprises, including:
— no
new domestic regulation for firms with fewer than ten staff and
new start-ups over the next three years;
— extension
to the temporary one-year increase in Small Business Rate Relief
for a further year, benefiting over half a million small businesses;
— £180
million for up to 50,000 additional apprenticeship places over
next four years;
— Research
and Development tax credits;
— Continuation
of the Time to Pay scheme;
— UKTI
support to Small and Medium Enterprises who want to export;
— extension
of the Enterprise Investment Scheme and doubling of Entrepreneurs'
Relief to £10 million; and
— 1p
reduction in fuel duty and deferral of the planned increase.
25. A wide range of actions are already underway
to attract the private sector investment, drive growth and encourage
private sector engagement in going for growth. For example:
— The
creation of Local Enterprise Partnerships has given local
communities and businesses the opportunities to support economic
growth and regeneration in their areas by addressing the particular
barriers to growth they face. 31 Local Enterprise Partnerships
have been announced so far, covering 87 % of England's population.
— The
Regional Growth Fund is aimed at supporting projects and
programmes with significant potential for creating long-term private
sector-led economic growth and employment. In particular, it will
help those areas and communities that are currently dependent
on the public sector make the transition to sustainable private
sector-led growth and prosperity. Schemes submitted in Round 1
of the Regional Growth Fund are being considered and successful
bids will be announced shortly.
— The
Local Government Resource Review is considering options
to enable councils to retain their locally-raised business rates.
Such an approach will help provide incentives for local authorities
to promote economic growth and help to further encourage a positive
relationship between local government and business.
— The
Review will also deliver proposals to introduce Tax Increment
Financing powers, allowing councils to fund key infrastructure
projects by borrowing against future increases in business rates,
thereby freeing up development opportunities that would otherwise
not have been taken forward.
— The
Government is reforming the way in which it ensures that business
start-ups and existing Small and Medium Enterprises
can access the information, business advice and enterprise support
they need. This will support enterprise creation and growth, and
support economic development in local communities.
— UK
Trade and Investment is putting in place new arrangements for
provision of sectoral and local support for foreign direct
investment through a single national framework for England
(outside London). Local Enterprise Partnerships will be important
in ensuring these new arrangements fully reflect the local offer.
— The
Government is freeing learning providers from outside interference
so they are able respond to local training needs and market demand
to support the growth and regeneration of their local economy.
— A range
of other tools already exist that local authorities could also
use to support businesses and deliver local improvements. For
example Business Improvement Districts are partnerships
between a local authority and local businesses to develop and
deliver priority projects and services that will have a direct,
positive impact on the trading environment in a defined area.
These can include public realm improvements, improved promotion
of the area, or extra safety and security measures.
26. The Localism Bill, currently
before Parliament, also provides for other elements of the regeneration
toolkit, including:
— Measures
allowing local businesses much more say with regard to business
rate supplements, allowing them to vote for and in effect
approve all future planned economic development projects that
they will be funding.
— Powers
for local authorities to introduce discounts on business rate
bills, allowing councils to attract and retain local business,
for example in particular locations or from particular sectors
(within the constraints of the state aids rules).
— the
General Power of Competence which will, for the first time,
give local authorities genuine freedom to act in the interest
of their local communities.
— measures
to enable local communities to save valued community assets,
and challenge to run local services.
— proposals
for neighbourhood planning, whereby local communities will
be empowered to shape the planning policy for their areas, including
what new development should take place, what it looks like and
where it goes.
— reforms
to the Community Infrastructure Levy which,
alongside the New Homes Bonus, will create a compelling package
of incentives for areas to accept growth by giving local authorities
and residents the means and flexibility to manage the impacts
and share in the benefits of growth.
— increased
flexibility regarding social housing allocations, homelessness
provision and tenure, allowing local councils to better manage
their housing stock and better serve vulnerable individuals and
families who find themselves in housing need.
— enabling
the Mayor of London to create Mayoral Development Corporations
and giving the Greater London Authority a new strategic housing
and regeneration role in London.
— powers
for communities to instigate local referendums on any local
issue; and power to veto excessive council tax increases.
27. Several other elements of the regeneration
toolkit are already in place or are in train, including:
— The
Homes and Communities Agency was re-launched in November
2010 as a smaller investment and enabling body working for local
communities on their priorities. The Agency will deliver up to
150,000 new affordable homes over the next four years.
— We
announced in February the outcome of bidding to the HCA for decent
homes funding for 2011-12 and 2012-13 and indicative funding
allocations for the following two years. The Decent Homes Backlog
programme will invest over £2 billion to improve the conditions
of people's social homes in some of the most deprived areas. Some
of this funding will make possible wider regeneration schemes
for difficult estates.
— In
February, the Homes and Communities Agency published its first
list of all Agency land and property assets as part the
Government's transparency agenda. This information could enable
local partners to work with the Agency to support the assembly
of local land development opportunities.
— The
Government is working with 16 local areas to develop the first
phase of Community Budgets, focussing on the needs of families
with multiple problems. These will pool and/or align the national
and local funding they need to deliver transformational solutions
for these families. We are working with several other areas to
pool and align budgets at a local level. These include a number
of areas that are looking to develop a Local Integrated Services
approach, which seeks to address entrenched problems through
involvement of communities in the design, commissioning and delivery
of locally tailored services, responding to local need and priorities.
— The
final New Homes Bonus scheme was published on 17 February.
The Bonus will include bringing empty properties back into use—providing
an incentive to those authorities which refurbish existing homes
and tackle blight. There will be no penalty for demolishing homes
which are already recorded as long-term empty—providing
an incentive to press ahead with renewal programmes already underway.
And in addition, as unringfenced funding, the Bonus will provide
a significant, flexible resource which can be reinvested in regeneration
and growth.
— We
have committed £100 million as part of the Affordable
Homes Programme to bring empty homes back into use. Funding
is available from April 2012 and HCA have invited expressions
of interest from interested parties.
— The
proposals for NHS and public health reform give local government
the freedom, responsibility and funding to innovate and develop
their own ways of improving public health in their area, to make
a major impact on improving people's health and tackling health
inequalities in every community. Local authorities will receive
a new grant and a premium that rewards progress in improving health
and reducing health inequalities.
— The
new Work Programme will play a crucial role in getting
people back to work. Government will no longer prescribe what
support providers will offer individual clients. Instead it relies
on the market to decide what works best in different local labour
markets across the country. Providers will be paid on the results
they achieve. They will need to work side-by-side with local partners
if they are to be successful and deliver the best possible outcomes.
We are now evaluating bids to deliver the Work Programme and remain
on track to begin in the summer.
— Through
Broadband Delivery UK, we are investing £530 million to deliver
superfast broadband to areas that the market will not deliver
to. This will ensure that an acceptable level of broadband is
delivered to households, business and communities in rural and
other remote parts of the country that are currently excluded.
— Government
responded to the Clapham Review of Coalfields Regeneration
on 10 March setting out the Coalition Government's commitment
to continuing support to communities in coalfield areas, including
c.£150 million to complete viable committed schemes and £30
million for the Coalfields Regeneration Trust for the next two
years.
— Strategic
leadership for the Thames Gateway is now coming from a
group of local authorities and business leaders in London, Kent
and Essex, and the Mayor of London, who collectively have responsibility
for setting the direction that development should take within
the Gateway and where investment incentives should be directed.
We have also announced plans to transfer the functions of both
the London and Thurrock Thames Gateway Development Corporations
to the relevant local authorities, or other London bodies.
— Enabling
works for Crossrail are underway across London—at
Paddington, Bond Street, Tottenham Court Road, Farringdon, Liverpool
Street and Whitechapel, and on the Canary Wharf Crossrail station.
Crossrail awarded the major tunnelling contracts in late 2010,
and other elements are out to tender.
— On
28 February, the Government commenced a major public consultation
on its proposals for the High Speed 2 rail link. The Appraisal
of Sustainability[80]
shows that the station developments along the proposed route for
the initial London-West Midlands phase could support the creation
of around 30,000 new jobs and would feed directly into existing
regeneration plans, particularly around Old Oak Common in West
London and in the Eastside district of central Birmingham.
28. DCLG launched its Barrier Busting Portal
on 15 December, providing local community groups, individuals
and local authorities with direct access to a team of Whitehall
barrier busters dedicated to helping local people put their ideas
into action. A number of cross-cutting regeneration cases are
already being considered, in addition to many cases on individual
issues such as planning, barriers to increasing volunteering,
and acquiring assets. Barriers being addressed include Government
legislation, information and capacity gaps, and local differences
in priorities.
29. DCLG is also working with four vanguard
communities to help them deliver their vision of the Big Society
by, for example, working with colleagues across Government to
remove identified barriers where we can, or helping community
groups can turn their local plans into reality, such as the installation
of rural broadband or giving people a greater say on local development
and budgeting. We are also working with other communities who
have now approached us with some specific proposals to grow the
Big Society in their communities. A number of other local authorities
have also shown interest in this work.
30. The Committee will no doubt be keen to discuss
recent cuts in direct regeneration funding. We recognise these
are posing challenges for some areas. However, we have taken steps
to ease the transition as far as possible, for example:
— As
part of the local government funding settlement, we included a
transitional element to ensure that no area will face an excessive
cut in public funding next year.
— The
Homes and Communities Agency and DCLG are working with housing
market renewal and growth areas to help them manage the transition
and identify alternative funding sources, including New Homes
Bonus, and bring a stronger emphasis on refurbishment including
community based renewal projects. A new £5 million transition
fund was announced on 31 January to help safeguard and develop
expertise and capacity in the five worst affected areas.
— The
Spending Review provided £1.3 billion to deliver existing
Regional Development Agency and Homes and Communities Agency commitments,
so that subject to value for money current projects which are
valued by local communities are seen to completion.
31. Not all regeneration and growth programmes
require large sums of money, but where direct funding is needed,
a range of sources are still available. Local partners in many
areas are already proactively considering how to take forward
their plans through a combination of thinking creatively about
alternative ways of delivering their aims, attracting alternative
funding sources, and seeking opportunities for collaboration and
efficiencies. These include:
— the
applicability of sources of direct funding such as the Regional
Growth Fund, European Regional Development Fund, Rural Development
Programme for England and Community First;
— the
income that the new incentives schemes (eg New Homes Bonus) could
provide;
— the
potential of options such as tax increment finance, community
shares and social impact bonds;
— building
up an asset portfolio and using it to generate an income stream;
and
— ways
of attracting and leveraging private sector investment, including
through assets and venture capital approaches.
32. Moreover, direct regeneration funding has
always been dwarfed by mainstream and infrastructure spend, and
Regeneration to enable growth describes a wide range of
mainstream and infrastructure programmes that, despite unprecedented
public spending constraints, continue to contribute to regeneration
and growth and support disadvantaged people and places. This includes
investment in affordable and decent homes, transport, business
support, skills, education, employment and health services.
33. Whilst we expect local authorities to take
the lead in building the capacity of local communities, central
Government has a role in galvanising and enabling the transition
to the Big Society. As cited above, there are many examples where
local partners and communities are already involved in improving
their area. However, we recognise that some communities may need
more support, and several actions are underway on this:
— The
training of 5,000 Community Organisers. Working within
communities and with existing community organisations these Organisers
will build the local networks and leadership that will give communities
greater confidence and capability to shape their future.
— Community
First grants will encourage more social
action in neighbourhoods with significant deprivation and low
social capital. Neighbourhood groups will work with businesses,
charities and public authorities, encouraging people to help others
and themselves to improve the quality of life locally.
— Actions
to attract social investment. Growing the Social Investment
Market[81]
sets out our strategy to ensure social ventures can access the
capital they need to grow and help build a bigger, stronger society,
including the key role of the Big Society Bank as a wholesale
investor and champion of the market.
— £100
million Transition Fund enabling charities, voluntary sector
and social enterprises currently heavily reliant on public funding
to adapt to and manage the transition to a different funding environment.
— An
emerging programme of work from Groundwork focusing on
building social capital, economic inclusion and environmental
sustainability in some of the poorest places. Groundwork will
work with local organisations, offering advice and support to
help them build their capacity to drive forward local projects,
secure funding and engage the wider community.
34. The Homes and Communities Agency is on call
to local authorities to provide specialist expertise and technical
services across a range of housing and regeneration issues. The
role they play will vary according to place, capacity and local
need, but could include masterplanning, economic appraisal, brownfield
land, procurement, levering in private investment though joint
ventures and help with securing and making best use of land and
property assets.
35. Specialist sector-led organisations such
as UK Regeneration also have a role to play in supporting those
involved in regeneration, including sharing experiences, promoting
knowledge of what works, and building professional skills and
networks.
36. As set out above, Government has already
brought substantial change to the regeneration landscape and provided
a wide range of tools, powers and incentives that form the regeneration
toolkit, but there is more to come. Upcoming milestones include:
— The
Government will consult on the revised National Planning Policy
Framework over the summer, with the aim of finalising the Framework
by the end of 2011 if it is possible to do so.
— The
first Community Budgets will be in place from next month, and
the intention is that all areas will operate Community Budgets
by 2013-14.
— The
Local Government Resource Review will deliver proposals in July
2011.
— Bids
that are successful in round one of the Regional Growth Fund will
be announced shortly. The second round will open on 12 April.
— From
April, local District Managers at Jobcentre Plus will have greater
discretion to tailor support to local needs, working with local
partners, including local authorities and Local Enterprise Partnerships,
to secure more sustainable employment for those out of work.
— DCLG
and the Office for Civil Society are considering the capacity
of different communities to participate in the Big Society and
take advantage of the new Community Rights and other opportunities.
In the next few months, we will publish a web document setting
out the vision for the Big Society, the opportunities and rights
it offers, our analysis of the capacity within communities and
the support we can offer to help build this.
— DCLG
hopes soon to announce the results of work with the 11 Capital
and Assets Pathfinders to help them make more effective use of
their public estate. There are significant opportunities here—for
example, when mapping local assets, one local authority was surprised
to discover that 35% of non-domestic buildings in the town centre
were public sector owned or controlled.
— The
Government will consult on the detail of our reforms to the Community
Infrastructure Levy in the summer. Following the consultation
we will introduce amendment regulations, which we expect will
come into effect in April 2012.
— A number
of further Local Enterprise Partnerships are gearing up and will
be established over the next year.
— Tunnelling
activity for Crossrail is expected to begin in late 2011 with
full tunnelling getting under way in 2012.
— The
High Speed 2 consultation will close on 29 July, and the Government
expects to announce its response by the end of this year.
ASSESSING IMPACT
AND LOOKING
AHEAD
37. The Government believes that top-down performance
management frameworks, such as target setting, not only create
inefficient bureaucracy but also distort the outcomes that local
professionals pursue on the ground, to the detriment of meeting
the needs of local people.
38. Instead of relying on bureaucratic accountability
to central government, the Government's approach is therefore
to strengthen democratic accountability to local people, where
individual service users and citizens have the information they
need on how service users and local institutions are performing
and can hold them to account through the power of choice and ballot
box. This approach is already being adopted in a number of ways
across public services:
— by
dismantling the top-down performance management regimes that have
created bureaucracy and distorted behaviours in the past, such
as Comprehensive Area Assessment;
— by
making more information available to citizens about the services
that they receive and the institutions that are entrusted with
delivering them—for example, by requiring local authorities
to publish every item of expenditure over £500;
— by
creating greater choice for users of services, for example by
extending the use of personal budgets across adult social services;
and
— by
giving communities the right to challenge service provision -
for example, the right to challenge to run local authority services
being taken forward under the Localism Bill.
39. In line with the Localism agenda, the Government
will not be imposing any performance management frameworks on
local partners to assess the success of its approach to regeneration.
It will be up to local partners to determine the success or otherwise
of their plans, and for local people to hold each other to account
if their expectations are not met.
40. We should not be so naive to imagine that
a localist approach will always mean that local partners will
always agree about the solutions to local problems, or that national
Government or Ministers will not wish to express a view from time
to time. We are keen to encourage mature debate between all partners.
In extreme cases, there may still be a role for central Government
to intervene more directly through the levers that it retains.
However, this would be a last resort—after other forms of
support (including sector-led support) have been exhausted. We
would expect such cases to become increasingly rare in the future.
41. Ultimately, success of our approach will
be measured by the strength and balance of the UK economy. Whilst
there will be no formal evaluation or assessment, national statistics
relating to employment, civic action, the wellbeing indicators
being developed by the Cabinet Office, and the Index of Multiple
Deprivation may be helpful to all of us interested in regeneration.
42. To inform future policy development, Government
will want to understand how the tools and incentives we have provided
are being used locally, and the range of approaches local partners
are taking to progress their regeneration schemes. Each individual
policy or investment within the toolkit is subject to its own
evaluation arrangements. However we will take an interest in the
results from these and implications for regeneration and growth.
We will also want to identify whether any further tools and incentives
would be helpful.
43. We will therefore continue a dialogue with
local partners with these questions in mind. The Government will
be open to requests for support and ideas from the sector, including
through the barrier busting portal. We are monitoring such cases
to identify any shared concerns that might warrant new central
government action.
CONCLUSION
44. Local communities have already delivered
some excellent examples of what the Government wants to see. We
are now in the process of building the toolkit of flexibilities,
tools, powers and incentives that will support locally-led regeneration
and growth. Local Enterprise Partnerships, the Regional Growth
Fund, Community Budgeting, Community Organisers and the barrier
busting portal are now part of the landscape. The Localism Bill
will bring forward a wider range of tools such as neighbourhood
planning, community rights, and business rate discounts; the Local
Government Resource Review will propose better incentives in the
business rates system and deliver powers for tax increment finance;
the Budget added Enterprise Zones, a package of support for Small
and Medium Enterprises, and fundamental changes to the planning
system to the toolkit; and other elements are to come.
45. In many ways Localism has turned the traditional
model of regeneration on its head, and such an institutional and
cultural change will take time to fully establish. Yet, less than
a year since the launch of the Coalition Government, we are already
a long way down the track.
March 2011
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is doing in support of community-led regeneration, Department
for Communities and Local Government, 31 January 2011 Back
66
Local Growth: realising every place's potential, HM Government,
28 October 2010 Back
67
Fair Society, Healthy Lives: The Marmot Review,
February 2010 Back
68
Factors affecting private investment in regeneration: Urban
Research Summary No.6, Department for Communities and Local
Government, 2006 Back
69
Evaluation of the Single Regeneration Budget Challenge Fund,
Department for Communities and Local Government, 2007 Back
70
Evaluation of the National Strategy for Neighbourhood Renewal-Final
Report, Department for Communities and Local Government, 2010 Back
71
New Deal for Communities 2001-05 An Interim Evaluation Research
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72
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Department for Communities and Local Government, 2009 Back
73
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2010 Back
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77
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78
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79
Functional Economic Market Areas: An economic note, Department
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80
HS2 London to the West Midlands: Appraisal of Sustainability,
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81
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