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Localism bill – update and call to action

The consultations on the Community Right to Buy and the Community Right to Challenge have now closed. NAVCA has produced a briefing for MPs (and others who are interested) on changes it would like to see – and commitments not to lose. Read the briefing on the NAVCA website and   more about the Localism Bill.

NAVCA is asking people to contact their MPs to ask them to support the changes at the report stage on 17th May (tomorrow)

Bromley’s MPs are:

The Department of Communities and Local Government held a number of consultation events on the “Community Rights” and the notes of the London event are on CLB's website. Emerging highlights from the meetings are:

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NHS Listening Exercise – share your views

Following public and professional objections to the government’s plans for the NHS, the government has famously announced a “listening exercise”. The “listening exercise” will end on the 31st May. You can find out more on the listening exercise section of Department of Health website which includes both an online form and a more detailed response form to download and return to nhsfutureforum@dh.gsi.gov.uk . You might also be interested in visiting the NHS Future Forum website . The NHS Future Forum is a group of clinicians, patient representatives’, voluntary sector representatives and others from the Health field that will oversee the NHS listening exercise.

NAVCA has produced a further briefing on key issues that it wishes to see address in the listening exercise. Read NAVCA's briefing.   NAVCA will be making a formal response.

CLB and the VSRG are considering a further response to the Listening Exercise. If you have any comments please send them to Stephen Blann  at Community Links Bromley, Community House, South Street, BR1 1RH by 23rd May. 
You can also see the original response from the Voluntary Sector Reference Group and Community Links to the White Paper and linked consultations. 

Read NAVCA’s earlier responses submitted to each of the four consultation documents on specific aspects of the Health White Paper, Equity and Excellence: Liberating the NHS. 

  1. Increasing democratic legitimacy in health
  2. Commissioning for patients
  3. Regulating healthcare providers
  4. Transparency in outcomes
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Your views wanted on consultation on statutory guidance on VCS funding cuts and repealing the duty to involve

The Department of Communities and Local Government (CLG) has launched a consultation on ‘Best Value’ statutory guidance.

This proposes a single page of guidance on how councils should work with voluntary and community groups when facing difficult funding decisions -particularly cuts. There is a re-statement of two themes - “Best Value” includes social value – which allows for wider than price competition and that authorities will consult widely. There is a commitment to the Compact and that authorities should give three months’ notice of ending funding.

However, the preamble to the guidance also says that the government intends to abolish the current “duty to involve”. (See the CLB website for a brief note on Local Authorities - Duty to Involve.) Currently local authorities have a legal duty to involve a wide range of people and community groups in their decision-making. This implies a much higher level of engagement than consultation and councils will not be legally obliged to do so - merely have guidance that they should.  This is part of a wider repeal of regulation for local authorities involving the abolition of the whole of the guidance – “Creating Strong, Safe and Prosperous Communities” on how councils work with communities and other public bodies. They are also no longer be required to produce a Sustainable Communities Strategy – “Building a Better Bromley” being the local example – which offered voluntary and community groups  influence in shaping  services and community development.    

You can respond online and the deadline for responses is 14th June.  

Community Links Bromley is intending to submit a response to the consultation – if you have any comments please send them to Stephen Blann at Community Links Bromley by 3rd June.

For a non-London perspective, which might also give you some ideas for your response, Richard Caulfield, Voluntary Sector North West, has written a blog on the consultation.

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New Survey to map the impact of cuts in London

London Voluntary Service Council (LVSC) and its partners have launched a third ‘Big Squeeze’ survey to study the impact of the recession and public spending cuts on the capital’s voluntary and community sector (VCS) organisations and the Londoners they serve.
LVSC is encouraging all VCS organisations in London to take part in the survey  and have a say on how the cuts are affecting their organisations and the crucial services they provide to Londoners. The survey includes questions about:

The partners for this year’s Big Squeeze survey are: London Funders; Greater London Volunteering; MiNet; Race on the Agenda (ROTA); HEAR; Women’s Resource Centre (WRC); London Civic Forum; LASA; Children England; City Bridge Trust; Stonewall Housing; London Community Resource Network and Ethical Property Foundation.


The deadline to the complete the survey is Friday 27th May 2011. For more information contact policy@lvsc.org.uk.

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Localism Bill

There has been a lot of coverage of the Government’s localism agenda and new ‘community rights’ such as the ‘right to buy’ and ‘right to challenge’, but what do they mean? 

You can read a briefing by Stephen Blann, Policy & Networks Officer, Community Links Bromley. This also includes links to other briefings and further analysis.

Following on from the publication of the Localism Bill, the government began consultations on two key issues within the Bill –

You still have time to respond as the consultations close on 3rd May.

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Consultation on statutory guidance on cuts to the voluntary sector

The Department of Communities and Local Government is consulting on statutory guidance for public bodies on cuts to the voluntary sector. It applies to all “best Value” authorities – all councils, fire and police authorities and Transport for London. The consultation runs until June 14th – this is shorter than Compact standard. Go to the DCLG website to respond. The proposed guidance is very short - less than one side of A4 and the key points are:

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Consultation on planning for traveller sites

The current government wants to see changes in provision for travellers. It says that current arrangements do not work, specifically it says, “There is a widespread perception that the system is unfair and that it is easier for one group of people to gain planning permission”. The government has produced a consultation document on planning issues in relation to traveller sites. It wants to give councils more freedom in planning for traveller sites.

You can download the consultation at the DCLG website. The deadline for response is the 6th July. 

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Justice for All

Justice for All is a new campaign concerned at the Government’s proposals to reduce and in some areas of law, remove Legal Aid. This will particularly be the case in areas of “social welfare law” that voluntary organisations are more concerned. The Ministry of Justice’s impact assessment showed on average voluntary organisations could lose 77% of their legal aid income against 25% for private firms. Find out more at www.justice-for-all.org.uk.

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No health without mental health: a cross-government mental health outcomes strategy for people of all ages

The Department of Health has published a new mental health strategy called ‘No Health without Mental Health’ that replaces the previous strategy – ‘New Horizons: a shared vision for mental health’ only produced last year. As with much of the new Government’s approach to health, the strategy is focussed on outcomes. There are 6 objectives:

  1. More people will have good mental health
  2. More people with mental health problems will recover
  3. More people with mental health problems will have good physical health
  4. More people will have a positive experience of care and support
  5. Fewer people will suffer avoidable harm
  6. Fewer people will experience stigma and discrimination

Each of the chapters looks at potential outcomes for different people and agencies - government, providers, patients, communities and equalities.

Download No health without mental health: a cross-government mental health outcomes strategy for people of all ages (PDF, 705K)

The strategy has a number of supporting documents. The most important of these is probably: Delivering better mental health outcomes for people of all ages – this looks at each of the six objectives.

The other supporting documents are

There is also a leaflet for providers, community and others to act as a “call to action”.

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Health & Social Care Bill – first reading 19th January 2011

The Health and Social Care Bill – putting the proposals in last year’s NHS white paper into law – was introduced into parliament on the 19th January. It will take some time to complete all the parliamentary stages before it is law. The bill is enormous – 367 pages long with 13 pages of contents covering:

Click here to read Stephen Blann’s notes on each part and schedule in brackets to distinguish it from the tiles of each part / schedule and any explanatory notes in the Bill.

The Bill itself can be downloaded at the UK Parliament website http://services.parliament.uk/bills/2010-11/healthandsocialcare.html

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Healthy Lives, Healthy People: Transparency in Outcomes Proposals for a Public Health Outcomes Framework

The Department of Health published a public health white paper in the autumn and as with the NHS white paper. It is also consulting on an outcomes framework for public health. You can download a copy of the consultation from the Department of Health website as well as respond online.

As with the NHS white paper Outcomes Framework there are five ‘domains’ of broad aspirations each with a series of proposed indicators – these are the proposed domains for public health:

Domain 1: Health protection and resilience
Domain 2 Tackling the wider determinants of health
Domain 3: Health improvement
Domain 4: Prevention of ill health
Domain 5: Healthy life expectancy and preventable mortality

You can read briefing by Stephen Blann, Policy & Networks Officer, on CLB’s website.

The deadline for comments is the 31 March 2011. 

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Consultation on the funding and commissioning routes for public health

Alongside the public health white paper – Healthy Lives, Healthy People, the Government has just published a consultation on how the new public health service will be funded.

Public health services will be funded by a new public health budget, separate from the budget managed through the NHS Commissioning Board for Healthcare, to ensure that investment in public health is ring-fenced. Public Health England will fund public health activity three ways:

  1. allocating funding to local authorities;
  2. commissioning services via the NHS Commissioning Board; or
  3. commissioning or providing services itself.

You can respond by email: publichealthengland@dh.gsi.gov.uk or online. You can download the consultation from the Department of Health website. 

You can read a briefing by Stephen Blann, Policy & Networks Officer, on the CLB website.

The consultation closes on 31st March 2011.

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Commissioning Green Paper

The Government conducted a very short consultation – a month either side of Christmas – on proposals to change public sector commissioning. The aim is to increase the role of the voluntary sector and asocial enterprise in public service delivery. A number of organisations submitted formal responses. The thrust of these was that whilst government may want to open up local services for delivery by voluntary organisations, it should be for communities and organisations to decide if it is appropriate for them. There is concern about what “payment by results” really means – who is defining the results? Follow the links to download the NCVO response and the NAVCA response. You can also read the green paper itself on the Cabinet Office website

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