Neighbourhood Community Budgets

On Friday myself, Dr Rory Shand (Plymouth University) and colleagues from around the  country were invited to the Department of Communities and Local Goverment (DCLG) at Eland House, London, to explore ways of evaluating the newly initiated Pilots for the Neighbourhood Community Budgets programme.  The neighbourhood community budget programme was developed in 2012, it includes 12 neighbourhood areas in 10 community areas around the country. A Community Budget gives local public service partners the freedom to work together to redesign services around the needs of citizens, improving outcomes, reducing duplication and waste and  so saving significant sums of public money. According to DGLC a successful community budget will be able to deliver a better service to residents because it can:

·    make better use of its resources, including pooling the budgets of all agencies where it is effective to do so, including local knowledge, community assets and voluntary effort

·    remove central rules and regulations so local professionals can deliver better services by redesigning them so delivery is more effective for residents

·    give people greater control over their local public services

·    establish appropriate local partnership and governance arrangements to create a unified approach that suits their area.

These programmes represent the broader principles of Localism and of course the ideals of the Coalition Governments Big Society. From my perspective I see an opportunity here for continued exploration into the nature of sustainable communities and policy initiatives that sit under the umbrella of sustainable development at the local level. This work will feed directly into my existing research on town and parish councils which sought to understand the governance of sustainable development at the local level in Devon and Cornwall.