- Deputy Prime Minister is expected to set out how government
will slash needless bureaucracy for English councils, at the
Local Government Association Annual Conference today.
- Package will include simplified local growth funding, easing
of monitoring requirements and a review of councils' legal duties
to eliminate needless regulations.
- The measures will cut time spent on paperwork and admin,
freeing up councils to focus on local people's priorities as part
of the Plan for Change.
Councils will be freed from a “mountain of admin and paperwork”
so they can focus on delivering on their residents' priorities,
under reforms due to be announced today.
Deputy Prime Minister is expected to unveil the
measures during her keynote address at the Local Government
Association Annual Conference in Liverpool.
They will include merging more than £1.5 billion worth of capital
funding pots and slashing their time-consuming monitoring
requirements, as well as reviewing councils' legal
responsibilities to eliminate unnecessary
regulations.
The proposals will free up time and resources across hundreds of
councils and follows wider action including reforms to the local
government funding system and services such as SEND.
Deputy Prime Minister said:
“For far too long, councils have been weighed down by needless
bureaucracy that makes it harder to focus on what matters most -
delivering on local people's priorities.
“We have already taken steps to fix the foundations of local
government through our Plan for Change, and now we are going
further and starting to tackle the mountain of admin and
paperwork that too often holds the sector back.
“Our reforms will mean less pen pushing and more action in our
streets and communities, improving local services for years to
come.”
Under the plans announced today, the Levelling Up Fund, Town
Deals and Pathfinder Funds - worth more than £1.5 billion - will
be merged into a single pot and the 150 reporting requirements
that come with them will be slimmed down to less than
50.
This will help reduce paperwork - such as the tens of thousands
of pages that went into bidding for and reporting on these funds
- for more than 166 councils across England, who will also
be given more flexibility on how they can spend the money.
This sits alongside the government's work to consolidate funding
for core service delivery into the Local Government Finance
Settlement - part of wider reforms towards a fairer, simpler
funding system that targets money where it is most needed, to the
benefit of working families.
Alongside more flexible funding, work to explore pooling budgets
between public services focused on crisis prevention is also
expected to be announced. A small number of pilots
will test how councils can pool services to help prevent crises
before they arise
A new Local Government Outcomes Framework will also be published
today which sets 15 outcomes government will work with councils
to deliver - from preventing homelessness and rough sleeping to
community safety and child poverty.
Replacing a current system where council spending is frequently
micromanaged, the framework sets outcomes focused on
strategic national priorities for people and the places they call
home, leaving local councils to decide how best to achieve these.
The Deputy Prime Minister is also expected to launch a review of
the statutory duties that councils are responsible for
delivering.
Working in partnership with the sector, the review will aim to
reduce any unnecessary burden created by these duties while still
retaining critical regulations, for example those governing
councils' delivery of care services for their most vulnerable
residents.
It will involve the use of artificial intelligence to better
understand roughly 20,000 pieces of legislation that currently
apply to local government and will ultimately help free up
councils to focus on delivering for their communities.
Today's measures will help deliver the government's Plan for
Change by giving more autonomy to councils, cutting red tape, and
freeing them up to focus on unlocking growth in every region.
