Clegg: Community Budgets to help 120,000 'problem' families

Published by Jon Land for 24dash.com in Local Government and also in Communities, Housing

Up to 120,000 'problem' families will see a 'significant improvement' in services with the roll out of Community Budgets across the country, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg announced at the Local Government Association Conference today.

The Government believes Community Budgets for families with multiple problems will create better public services by bringing together all local priorities and public money so agencies can find the right solutions to issues in their area in a new and co-ordinated way.

The Deputy Prime Minister today invited councils to get behind the scheme. Around 50 more authorities will get Community Budgets this year and then at least a further 60 in 2012-13. This follows the success of sixteen pioneer areas that have put in place plans to support the first 10,000 families.

These families are less than one per cent of the population, but are seen by as many as 20 different public and voluntary sector professionals at a cost of £4billion a year. A Salford family required 250 interventions in one year including 58 police call-outs and five arrests; five 999 visits to Accident and Emergency; two injunctions; and a Council Tax arrears summons. Their Community Budget led to the £200,000 cost being cut by two thirds.

The Deputy Prime Minister also announced that four new Community Budgets pilots will be launched to explore how communities can have greater control over services through a single budget from Whitehall, as part the Government's review into local government finances.

• Two areas will be selected to help co-design neighbourhood level Community Budgets giving residents the opportunity to say what services they want, how they should work and whether they want to run them
• Two areas will be selected to help co-design a Community Budget bringing all funding on local public services from the area into a single pot to test how to create the right local financial set up to deliver better services that people want.

A prospectus will be issued by the Department for Communities and Local Government at the end of the summer setting out the details for creating these single budget pilots.

Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg said: "Every Government preaches localism. This Government will practice it. In terms of real decentralisation, money talks. We need to reverse decades of centralisation to make our communities masters of their own economic destinies.

"We have to create the conditions for communities to invest in their own success. That means putting our money where our mouth is to give local authorities proper power over spending as well as more control over the taxes raised and keep so, for example, they can fight to attract businesses to come to their area.

"We will also be putting community budgets at the heart of how we deliver services. There are families that have been let down by the system. Their complex problems mean they can end up seeing dozens of professionals across public services - but those professionals aren't always joined up, making it near impossible for anyone to get an overall picture of what that family needs.

"Community budgets are budgeting for real life, breaking down the barriers between different parts of the machine, and treating people with troubles like human beings, not figures on a spreadsheet."

The Deputy Prime Minister also announced that the Department for Communities and Local Government will introduce a Local Government Finance Bill that will throw the Whitehall shackles off local government funding by giving councils the freedom to borrow against business rates, known as Tax Increment Financing, and to retain business rates.

The first phase of the Local Government Resource Review is considering options to enable councils to retain locally raised business rates. Real progress is being made and it is expected to report in the summer. A second phase set out today deals with Community Budgets.

Eric Pickles added: "It makes no sense that 120,000 families cost the country £4 billion because inefficient public services are duplicating work. Community Budgets will radically change that by giving local councils and communities control over how public money spent in their area is used.

"We are extending the reach of Community Budgets so that more local services across the country work in partnership to knock back the bureaucratic processes that box them into working alone."

Tim Loughton, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Children said: "This is a once in a life time opportunity for the most disadvantaged families in society. We know that a key worker providing well coordinated no nonsense support helps families overcome even the most complex problems, get their children learning and into school and parents into work.

"This new programme will mean over half of local authorities in England will get help to make these changes this year."