The Sustainable Communities Act aims to improve the well-being
of local communities through suggestions put forward by local
people. The Act is based on the principle that you know what needs
to be done in your area but that sometimes central government needs
to act to enable change to happen. The Council asked local people
to submit ideas for change in May 2009.
What happened to the ideas submitted?
- Criteria check – 14 ideas were submitted and checked by council
officers to make sure they met the criteria of the act. Those that
did were then progressed to the next stage.
- Panel – the council convened a panel of local representatives
who discussed the ideas and reached agreement for eight ideas to be
recommend to a full Council meeting.
- Council – the council supported the eight ideas at its meeting
in July. These were submitted to the Local Government Association
(LGA) who acts as the ‘Selector’. The LGA deadline was 31 July
2009.
- LGA – the LGA received 301 proposals from over 100 local
authorities and considered all proposals during September-December
2009. A shortlist, including three ideas from West Lancashire, was
compiled and forwarded to the Secretary of State in January
2010.
- Secretary of State – the LGA discussed the shortlist with the
Secretary of State to reach a decision on which proposals would be
implemented.
- Shortlist decision – on 15 December 2010 it was announced that
none of the West Lancashire proposals were to be directly
implemented by the government.
The three ideas proposed by West Lancashire on the shortlist
were:
- Re-direction of funding for training contracts to local
authorities, to ensure locality-specific training needs can be
addressed and enable the establishment of practical
learning/training and social enterprise business hubs (will not be
implemented).
- Lobbying for changes to the Treaty of Rome to encourage local
economic stimulus (will not be implemented).
- Local authorities to keep a greater proportion of Right to Buy
receipts to enable house building and estate remodelling (Councils
will be helped to implement this themselves
Whilst we are obviously disappointed, the commentary on the
decisions (Adobe PDF format, 27kb) does show movement on the
issues raised in some areas. The process also demonstrated the
interest that our local communities and partners have in bringing
about positive changes for West Lancashire, not only through
submitting ideas, but also by giving time to get involved in the
decision-making processes at a local level.
To download the full report, visit the
government website (external link)
To find out more about the Act visit
Communities and Local Government (external
link)
website. For more information about the council process please
email alison.grimes@westlancs.gov.uk
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