#community budgets

[neighbourhoodnews-blog]

Our Place funding is now open!

The programme opened on 20 January with £4.3m funding to help communities shape public services in their area. The fund from the Department for Communities and Local Government aims to support at least 100 neighbourhoods by giving people more power over local services and budgets in their neighbourhoods, aligning these with all the other resources that the community can bring. [Source: My Community Rights web site]

[neighbourhoodnews-blog]

Locality to deliver Our Place programme

A consortium led by Locality will be working with the Department of Communities and Local Government to support at least 100 communities to tackle issues at a neighbourhood level. The Our Place programme, backed across government, has already been successful in 12 pioneering areas, all of whom are designing and delivering local services that focus on local priorities. The programme is positioned as a fundamental part of the government’s approach to localism, transforming public services by making sure that they are focussed on the user, not the organisation. As Steve Wyler, CEO of Locality, puts it "The Our Place approach places local people firmly at the heart of service design, decision making, planning and delivery because they know what will work best for their community." [Source: Locality, 10 December 2013]

[neighbourhoodnews-blog]

Guardian Housing Network live discussion: managing communities at a local level - 27 November 2013

Could a local approach to managing services work for housing? Could housing providers deliver services (such as repairs, benefits advice, social care and employment training) from small hubs within individual communities? What can housing learn from the success of community budgets? These are some of the issues that the Guardian Housing Network expert panel will be discussing on Wednesday 27 November 2013. [Source: The Guardian Housing Network]

[neighbourhoodnews-blog]

Government unveils £4.3m to expand community budgets initiative

The expansion of the ‘Our Place!’ programme builds on the work of the 14 Neighbourhood Community Budget Pilots which were announced in 2011. Announcing the expansion of the programme, DCLG said the pilots had put communities "firmly in the driving seat" and that the £4.3 million boost would mean the scheme could be rolled out to "enable at least 100 communities to design and deliver local services that focus on local priorities and reduce costs". [Government unveils £4.3m to expand community budgets initiative. Published on 9 July 2013 on Regeneration and Renewal]. You can find out more about the pilots and their achievements on the My Community Rights web site, which also has a number of quick guides to download.

[neighbourhoodnews-blog]

Learning from One Norbiton neighbourhood budget - An approach with huge potential, but a name that can mislead

In and article on The Guardian's LGN Service delivery hub, Laura Wilkes, policy manager at the Local Government Information Unit, LGIU, reflects on lessons to be drawn from One Norbiton, the neighbourhood community budget pilot which LGIU helped Kingston Council deliver. The One Norbiton pilot demonstrated that community budgets have huge potential for encouraging community involvement in the design and delivery of services. But also that working at this level takes time, and involves a substantial shift in attitude to funding, commissioning and partnerships. Also, the experience of the pilot suggests that for the approach to be widely adopted elsewhere it will be important that Whitehall doesn't see it simply as a Department for Communities and Local Government scheme and that the neighbourhood and community pilots find ways to talk to each other, share lessons and explore ways to work together and with other funding schemes. [Clarity, freedom and flexibility: the One Norbiton neighbourhood budget - Published on 3 May 2013 on The Guardian's Local Government Network service delivery hub]