Decentralisation minister Greg Clark has urged councils and their partners to demand from Whitehall the right to run services currently outside their remit.

Speaking to The MJ at the Local Government Association conference in Birmingham on 29 June, Mr Clark said the coalition's long-term ambition for decentralisation was to create a 'right of initiative' for localities, under which they could approach the government with proposals to control almost any locally-spent public services budgets - providing the plan was 'sensible' and met 'due diligence' tests applied by Whitehall.

Mr Clark - who will report the coalition's progress on decentralisation to the prime minister, David Cameron, this summer - said the plan would complement the government's expanded community budgets programme, announced today by deputy prime minister Nick Clegg.

Mr Clegg revealed he will soon expand 16 community budgets pilots for problem families to cover at least another 110 local authorities over the next two years. He also invited applications for two far bigger community budget projects, under which councils and their partners could pool locally-spent public sector budgets across an entire authority boundary.

But Mr Clark said his decentralisation plan could go even further, empowering councils and their partners to bid to run other services still currently managed from Whitehall.

'We've made a lot of progress [on decentralisation] in the past year, but I see that as a starting point and not a destination,' he told The MJ.

'People should be able to promote their ideas for better services and come to the government with proposals where previous restrictions applied. The initiative should come from them [councils and their partners].'