The Department for Communities and Local Government has unveiled two shortlists of areas in contention for approval in one of two community budget pilots.
Funding and resources for two experimental ‘whole place’ budgets will involve local authorities and partners working with Whitehall officials to co-design how a single budget encompassing all public services in an area could be implemented.
Six local authority areas chosen for selection in a trial, which officials say ‘could turn on its head the way Government does business with local areas’, include:
- Blackburn with Darwen BC
- Cheshire West and Chester Council
- Essex CC
- Greater Manchester
- Sunderland City Council
Tri-borough partnership of Westminster City Council, Hammersmith and Fulham LBC and Kensington and Chelsea LBC
Some 24 areas are in the running for two neighbourhood-level community budget pilots. Communities will be able to define their neighbourhood, which could take the form of a housing estate, ward or small group of wards.
The 24 contenders include:
- Balsall Heath Neighbourhood Forum
- Be Birmingham Partnership
- Bradford Trident
- Castle Vale Neighbourhood Partnership
- Cheshire East Council
- Cheshire West and Chester
- Great Yarmouth Borough Council
- Halifax Opportunities Trust
- Haverhill Town Council
- Hounslow Together
- Hammersmith and Fulham LBC
- NE Lincolnshire Strategic Partnership
- Newcastle City Council
- North Devon District Council
- Paddington Development Trust
- Peterborough City Council
- Poplar HARCA
- Kingston-upon-Thames RBC
- South Bank Employers Group
- St Peter’s Partnership
- Tunbridge Wells Borough Council
- Vestia Community Trust
- West Lindsey District Council
- Whitmore Reans Local Neighbourhood Partnership
