Three ideas proposed by West Lancashire under the Sustainable
Communities Act have been submitted to the Secretary of State for
consideration. They are:
1. 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
2. Local authorities to keep a greater proportion of Right
to Buy receipts to enable house building and estate remodelling
3. Lobbying for changes to the Treaty of Rome to encourage
local economic stimulus
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 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 act’s criteria.
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
an 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 is acting 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.
A shortlist, which included three ideas from West Lancashire,was
compiled and forwarded to the Secretary of State.
- Secretary of State – the LGA will discuss this shortlist with
the Secretary of State before a decision is made on which proposals
will be implemented.
- There is no timetable for this decision process. The LGA is
hoping that it will be concluded by Easter 2010. This page will be
updated once the outcome for the West Lancashire proposals is
known.
To find out more about the Act visit
Communities and Local Government (external link) and
Local Works (external
link) website. For more information about the council
process please email alison.grimes@westlancs.gov.uk.
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