Level Measures – maximising local value: placemaking budgets & partnerships | Wednesday 20 September from 11.00 a.m. to 12.00 p.m.

Localis’s report ‘Level Measures – a modern agenda for public service integration’ sought to ask how well-equipped England’s local authorities are to navigate the twin tasks of reformed local service provision and successful placemaking in the short and medium-term.

Among the seven principles a modern agenda for public service integration, we called for:

• Reliable, consistent and long-term funding – to unlock the efficiencies which planning service provision over the long-term can provide.
• Furthermore, our policy recommendation was that councils should enjoy revenue support for their neighbourhood service provision combined with money allocated through capital pots into a single placemaking budget.

Localis called for the following as key recommendations for modern whole place public service integration:

• Multi-year placemaking budgets of a minimum five-year timespan to plan service delivery and levelling up.
• Formation of council-led placemaking boards with local partners and key stakeholders to provide input into strategy and delivery.
• Long-term view towards reestablishing the kind of ‘whole place’ budgets as a universal standard.
• Partnership frameworks based on long-term strategic goals which maximise local value. Level Measures recommended working with the private and third sectors should be done in a relational, strategic manger where the priorities for residents are clearly spelled out and delivered by all partners.

GUIDING QUESTIONS

If we are to seek – against a backdrop of static public finances – maximum local value from long-term budgeting and the benefits of strategic and relational commissioning, this webinar asks us to consider:

• Have we learned all there is to be learned from various attempts, single regeneration budgets and the like, on what a single placemaking budget could look like and the potential it could offer for improved public service delivery?

• What would good placemaking budgeting look like in the current context, and what kind of community benefits and service efficiencies could be unlocked?

• Given the need to make the local pound stretch furthest, how great is the opportunity for good partnership working with private and third sector organisations to generate the economic, environmental and social value benefits which communities truly desire? And what obstacles might limit the full integration and realisation of commissioned public services?

Speakers included:

• Andy Foster, Regional Director, Capita
• Joanne Pitt, Principal Advisor, Local Government, CIPFA
• Rebecca Cox, Principal Policy Adviser, Local Government Association
• Matt Gladstone, chief executive, Peterborough City Council
• Jonathan Werran, Localis (chair)

In association with: