The government has revealed the 14 areas that will pilot the new ‘community budgets’ funding strategy.
Community budgets will allow councils or neighbourhoods to pool national and local funding sources in an effort to cut red tape and give local bodies greater control of their services.
The Communities and Local Government department said that the approach could save up to 20 per cent on public spending in some areas.
Four showcase areas have been selected by CLG to operate community budgets over the next year. These are: Cheshire West and Cheshire; Essex; Greater Manchester; and West London.
In addition, ten ‘neighbourhood level’ areas will run smaller community budgets. These include: White City, Kingston, Poplar and Queens Park in London; Cowgate, Kenton Bar and Montague in Newcastle; Castle Vale, Shard End and Balsall Heath in Birmingham; Ilfracombe in North Devon; Sherwood in Tunbridge Wells; Bradford Trident; and Havehill.
Communities secretary Eric Pickles said: ‘We can no longer afford the luxury which left public investment idling to no purpose. We need a gear change that makes ‘silo control’ obsolete and starts a local service revolution that puts people at the heart of spending decisions and saves money.
‘We’re setting up more community budgets than originally intended – these ‘pool and save’ pioneers can bring about truly local services with one big local cheque that knocks out bureaucratic processes everywhere and upends Whitehall’s monopoly over public money that’s hemmed in frontline workers for decades.’