The Government has published its promised legislation giving people new rights to shape local services and give greater responsibilities to local authorities to promote economic development.
Included in the Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Bill is a requirement for a new breed of regional planning document for the English regions which will bring together economic and spatial planning. There will also be a new duty on local authorities to assess the economic conditions of their area. One of the new measures in the Bill is a new duty requiring councils to respond to petitions.
Key measures include:
•Duty to promote democracy – this supports evidence that local authorities who actively involve people in decision-making benefit from higher public satisfaction. The duty will ensure councils raise awareness of their work and services so people can find out and understand how decisions about services that affect are made, how to make their voice heard and how to stand for a civic role.
•Duty on local authorities to respond to petitions – a recent YouGov survey found that 90 per cent of people think councils should take account of petitions – even though LGA survey showed less than a third of councils guarantee a response. The new duty will require councils to respond to petitions – improving transparency in local decision-making and the extent to which citizens feel able to influence local decisions.
•Extending the duty to involve – growing evidence highlights that involving citizens in the local decisions and services affecting them is an effective way of driving up the performance of public services. This duty already applying to best value local authorities from April 2009 is being extended to partner authorities to give citizen’s and communities more opportunities to have a meaningful say.
•Duty on local authorities to undertake an economic assessment of their area – to ensure that authorities have the right evidence to make informed decisions about promoting economic development.
•New Regional Strategy for each English region (except London) – these new strategies will bring together and integrate economic and spatial planning in each region. They will be developed in by the Regional Development Agency in partnership with a new local authority Leaders’ Board.
•New powers to create ‘Economic Prosperity Boards’ – to give local authorities the ability to create corporate bodies at sub-regional level to promote economic development.
•Allow creation of multi area agreements (MAAs) with statutory duties – these will provide a further option for local authorities to work together on economic development by allowing MAAs to be put on a similar statutory footing to Local Area Agreements.
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Links:
http://www.planningportal.gov.uk/england/professionals/en/1115316515791.html
http://www.communities.gov.uk/news/corporate/1088434
