The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) has announced the ten local authorities who will pilot its new simplified funding approach.
Last month, levelling up secretary Michael Gove told delegates at the Local Government Association’s annual conference that the government had developed a plan to simplify the funding landscape for councils.
Gove outlined that the proposed funding system would streamline several existing funds, which include the towns deals, levelling up fund round one and the future high streets fund, to allow local authorities to use the money “more flexibly”.
Yesterday (31 July), DLUHC released guidance on the new simplified funding approach and listed the ten councils that have been selected to pilot the scheme before it is rolled out to all authorities. These are: Bolton, Calderdale, City of Wolverhampton, Lewes, Nuneaton and Bedworth, Rotherham, Sheffield, Stockton-on-Tees, Thanet and Wirral councils.
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The guidance highlighted that these pilot councils will have greater ability to make decisions locally about moving funding between projects in their funding portfolio.
It also stated that the department will devolve decision-making responsibility over three in-flight capital funding programmes in the pilot areas, “increasing local flexibility, and reducing bureaucracy and inefficiency within the delivery process”.
“The pilot will allow government to understand the impact of a simplified and consolidated funding model on the delivery of locally selected capital projects, including how spending flexibility can support local authorities to respond to changing economic conditions,” DLUHC explained in the guidance.
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