Clegg invites councils to sign up to pooled community budgets scheme

The first 16 areas to trial so-called community budgets began the pilot in April. Speaking at the Local Government Association (LGA) conference today (29 June), Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg invited more councils to sign up to the programme with the aim of getting 50 more on board this year and a further 60 by 2012/13.

Community budgets allow councils to pull together funding from a variety of sources such as youth offending budgets and health to tackle families with the most complex needs.

For example, in Islington the council, NHS trust, Jobcentre Plus, probation, police, housing and voluntary sector groups are pooling staff and more than £6m of resources for their community budget plan.

Addressing the conference, Clegg said: "There are families that have been let down by the system. Their complex problems mean they can end up seeing dozens of professionals across public services, but those professionals aren’t always joined up, making it near impossible for anyone to get an overall picture of what that family needs.

"Community budgets are budgeting for real life, breaking down the barriers between different parts of the machine, and treating people with troubles like human beings, not figures on a spreadsheet."

LGA chairman Sir Merrick Cockell said giving local areas greater control over delivery of services for families saves money and improves lives.

"Pilot councils have demonstrated that it can work and with the extension of the scheme we are very confident that more will match and even exceed early successes," he said. "We do need much greater buy-in from all government departments if the next round of councils are to more easily overcome some of the hurdles that stand in the way of the huge savings and greater local accountability this approach can deliver. We estimate up to £100bn could be saved over the life of the current parliament if place-based budgets were introduced everywhere."

Children’s minister Tim Loughton said: "This is a once in a lifetime opportunity for the most disadvantaged families in society. We know that a key worker providing well-co-ordinated no-nonsense support helps families overcome even the most complex problems, get their children learning and into school and parents into work."