Community Budgets

Written evidence from the Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI) (CB 02)

Thank you for the opportunity to contribute to your consultation on the Community Budgets. With 23,000 members worldwide working in the public, private, charitable and education sectors, the RTPI is the largest professional institute for planners in Europe. As well as promoting spatial planning, RTPI develops and shapes policy affecting the built and natural environment, works to raise professional standards and supports members through continuous education, training and development.

Our comments on this consultation have been drawn from the expertise of staff and our members. We wish to make some general points before dealing with the specific consultation questions.

The RTPI welcomes initiatives that promote greater local flexibility and freedoms. Indeed, the RTPI has been championing this case for many years as it feels policies that break down departmental and geographical silos will better align local expenditure with local need and enable innovative solutions to the needs of particular places.

The RTPI would like to emphasise the role planners can have in this process. Planners bring together a range of issues – economic, social and environmental - that affect communities so a movement towards single budgeting should consult the Local Planning Authority to help design the original process. Furthermore, on a local level, guidance on utilising Community Budgets should emphasise the role planners can have and encourage their involvement.

The RTPI recognises that the Community Budgets currently have a limited scope – focussing on troubled families – as they are pilots. However, the RTPI would welcome moves to expand the scope of a single budgeting scheme incorporating other key issues such as health and social care. The Marmot Review [1] – requested by the Secretary of State for Health – showed that a large proportion of an individual’s health is as a result of their lifestyle and not the health service. This reinforces the role cross-departmental budgeting could have - i.e. spending in one area can have savings in another – as well as emphasising the role the Local Planning Authority can have in this process.

Planning has a particular role in supporting and designing improved service locations by integrated delivery. Through working with service providers, the planning system both enables more effective user locations to be chosen but can also work with public sector land managers to reuse the remaining assets which will no longer be required as part of this redesign or co-location process. The planning system can support the release and development of these assets in a way that is efficient and effective whilst improving public service locations.

Finally, the RTPI suggests that lessons are learnt about at which spatial level Community Budgets are most effective. On a neighbourhood level they have the ability to be shaped by a larger proportion of the population but Whole Place Community Budgets can benefit from scale and work across functional economic areas. Once the correct spatial level is decided, locking all tiers and departments of government with a contract – which is perhaps an extension of the Duty to Cooperate – will ensure buy-in.

Responses to consultation questions

Are Community Budgets an effective approach to working with troubled families?

The RTPI recognises and welcomes initiatives that promote greater local freedoms and flexibilities. The RTPI considers policies that break down departmental and geographical silos will better equip planners in their local area. The RTPI feels that the Community Budgets initiative should work well with troubled families as collaboration between local government departments and partners should provide more efficient programmes while greater flexibility of budgets will align local need with local spending. While the RTPI welcomes the initiative on troubled families – and recognises its role as an initial pilot – we would want to see the scheme extended to other areas of society and economy such as health and social care, transport and quality of life. This is because troubled families and poorer communities often live in localities with poor public transport which means they may lack the connection to potential jobs and reinforces isolation. It is here that planners can contribute to the programme by understanding where current and future isolated families and communities are and the barriers that need to be overcome in order to deliver worthwhile and joined up public services.

How can the success of Community Budgets (for troubled families, total place and neighbourhoods) be measured, and what are the prospects for models of Payment by Results?

The RTPI believes that local areas should have the necessary resources to understand and measure the results of the initiative. However, given the nature and principles underpinning the initiative, spending in one area can have beneficial results in other areas which make measurement difficult. Furthermore, beneficial impacts, regardless of the department it occurs, can happen at varying time frames and so payment by results may not be suitable in all cases. However, payment by results allows tangible targets to be met and incentivises local areas to design and deliver a scheme that works. So long as there are upfront payments made to help fund the initial investment, a proportion allocated as payment by results would be suitable.

As a result of Community Budgets how are, and will, Whitehall’s relationship with localities operate and be changed?

The principles underpinning Community Budgets of greater local freedoms and flexibilities around programme design and budget allocation requires an equal recognition from Whitehall to support localism. The RTPI recognises that changing the mentality and perception of departments in Whitehall will take time but notes that significant progress has been made. While it is fair to say that some departments are initially more supportive than others, a continued dialogue between central government, Whitehall and local government will ensure the agenda is not lost.

The key is to place departmental budgets and civil servants within the local authority democratic management framework to allow the budgets to be managed more flexibly and to be moved within localities without the competitive nature of the departmental operation (see the evidence of Lord Heseltine to the BIS Select Committee [2] ). This level of integration is best seen within Greater Manchester as local budgets and responsibilities are handed to authorities who also collaborate with their local authority neighbours to design and implement services.

How are public funds for Community Budgets accounted for, both locally and centrally? 

Community Budgets will be hampered if there is dual accountability between central and local democratic institutions. It would be appropriate for the budgets to be transferred to the local authority who then design the programmes that best fit local situations and preferences. Moreover, clarity is needed around who gains from the efficiency savings accrued from local budgeting.

How can Community Budgets maximise the use of resources through co-design and co-production of integrated services in the face of reducing resource and outdated modes of service provision? 

The RTPI welcomes the initiative that gives local areas greater freedoms and flexibilities for programme design and budget allocation. It also recognises that the efficiencies it can bring should help ensure services are run with less financial resource – ‘doing more with less’ – while in the long run can provide better, more holistic approaches to the issues local government faces. It is unsurprising that expenditure in one area of local government can have beneficial impacts in another but in the current system there is no method of combining budgets to this end. So long as genuine freedoms and flexibilities are given and that the initiative is extended to other areas of the economy, the RTPI supports the plan.

Planning has a particular role in supporting these objectives through improved service locations and integrated delivery. Through working with service providers, the planning system both enables more effective user locations to be chosen but can also work with public sector land managers to reuse the remaining assets which will no longer be required as part of this redesign or co-location process. The planning system can support the release and development of these assets in a way that is efficient and effective whilst improving public service locations.

A worthwhile example of how single budget pots can work is of EPIC based in Bromsgrove. Essentially, they tendered - and were awarded - many contracts for a variety of public services which they pooled together in order to find efficiency savings in administration. Not only do the offered services they provide often complement each other, the efficiency savings generated allowed them open up a café. Furthermore, the localised nature of the initiative allowed for greater community engagement in shaping the services and allowed the expenditure to stay in the local area.

How can community placed based budgeting strengthen participatory democracy by empowering individuals and communities especially addressing processes of exclusion for specific groups?

The RTPI feels that one of the central pillars to Community Budgets is that local needs are better aligned to local expenditure i.e. specific local issues are tackled by bespoke local programmes and funded by local spending. The RTPI feels that this creates greater accountability and, as such, should allow local people to feel that they are able to influence and change initiatives in their area. Ensuring community engagement and collaboration is emphasised, the RTPI feels that Community Budgets have great potential.

The RTPI recognises the impact joined-up revenue expenditure can have but would also like to see this rolled out to capital issues also. While the RTPI recognises that much of this is emphasised within City Deals and LEP budgeting, the RTPI would like to emphasise the role of local government assets. The potential to better use assets, be it shared space or asset swapping, can have a large impact on local space, local communities and local people. Furthermore, if assets are unused and do not form part of a long term plan for the area, then selling these assets off to fund other projects to benefit the area should be encouraged.

It is important to emphasise that Local Planning Authorities need to be consulted and engaged as part of this process. Changes to local areas need to be informed by the local community and RTPI’s Planning Aid offers an excellent example of this community engagement and advice in drawing up neighbourhood planning. The excellent example of participative decision making in local planning needs to be extended to other service planning which would include access to services and the use of released land and buildings.

Is it possible to use Community Budgets to reset relationships between local democratic institutions, agencies and the public?

The RTPI feels that the localism agenda, of which Community Budgets is just one initiative, has the potential to build relationships and form partnerships between local democratic institutions, agencies and the public. However, the RTPI also recognises that this process will take time and so a sustained, engaged and genuine approach to localism will be required.

It is important to ensure that all tiers and structures of government commit to the same outcomes and all contribute appropriately over a clearly defined area. The Duty to Cooperate – ensuring local authorities ‘engage constructively, actively and on an ongoing basis’ to develop strategic policies for sustainable development or the use of land that would have a significant impact on two or more authorities - is an important first measure and could be extended to encompass relevant tiers and departments. This will provide a clear and necessary demonstration to the EU of the commitment to the process.

How can Community Budgets be used as a tool to enhance local health improvement and narrow the health divide?

The RTPI feels that greater flexibilities and freedoms around programme design and budget allocation can have significant affects to local health improvement. People’s health is not only a factor of the healthcare available in an area – although it is very important – but rather it is as a result of a myriad of other issues such as employment, housing, green space, exercise facilities, stress levels, infrastructure, community cohesion and congestion, to name a few. The RTPI recognises that spending in one of these areas, such as improving housing quality, can have a beneficial impact on a person’s health and yet, under the current system, the healthcare budget on the whole cannot be shifted to the housing budget. As a result, spending is often reactive. Under Community Budgets, there is a potential to shift budgets to target the same problem. Furthermore, this type of spending may well be earlier in someone’s life and should target the cause rather than the consequence.

Recently, there have been changes to how public health funding is allocated and who is accountable. The recent reforms and changes in the local leadership in public health and commissioning are a model for Community Budgets and lead to questions on why this approach cannot be used in other areas such as social care, benefits and taxation.

What role can Health and Wellbeing Boards play in facilitating Community place based budgeting across all local agencies?

The Health and Wellbeing Boards are a keystone of the new public health system. As they have a statutory obligation to involve the local community in the Joint Strategic Needs Assessments, there should be local accountability as well as an option to influence policy. Ensuring that the relevant officials from the local authority – i.e. across all departments – will allow specific health issues can be targeted by initiatives spanning the local departments.

Health and Wellbeing Boards represent a great opportunity to encourage the participation of all agencies in the implementation of Community Budgets as well as in the integration of Community Budgets into wider strategies.

Health and Wellbeing Boards could also play a role in the future possible roll-out of Community Budgets to other areas.

April 2013