Our chief executive, Tom, shares an update on the government’s recently published Devolution White Paper including analysis about where the proposals fall short on real commitments for regeneration projects that prioritise community power and set communities up as partners in energy, land, places, employment and housing projects.
Featured image: South Bank Community Land Trust
When Gordon Brown was last in office, the term ‘double devolution’ was still in fashion. Twelve years later, he led a Commission on the UK’s Future for Starmer’s party which found ‘clear evidence that people want more of a say on the issues that affect their lives, meaning we need double devolution – pushing power as close as possible to people and communities.’
Sadly, the English Devolution White Paper published this week shows little interest in double devolution, or localism, or community power, or whatever you wish to call it.
The paper’s main focus is on reorganising and strengthening councils, and expanding and empowering combined authorities that sit above them. Considerable thought has been put into rewiring the system of local government to create a better partnership in service of the government’s missions, particularly growth, and solving the financial crisis afflicting councils. Local government is described as the foundation of our state, a critical partner and a convenor of place.
There is a short section on communities, but no comparable vision for their role. They are not described as foundations, partners, convenors. They are promised ‘a say in the future of their area and… a part in improving it’ and other such vague phrasing.
There are a few specific examples given – Business Improvement Districts, the Community Ownership Fund, and the Community Right to Buy. But they are unrelated to, and disconnected from, the main powers and levers set out for local and strategic government.
The white paper – quite rightly – argues that communities cannot exercise much power if they are living from one payslip to the next. So what if people and communities could have agency in meeting these basic needs through community-led homes, jobs, training and so on?
What is missing in the white paper is a vision of a set of democratic institutions sitting below councils that give form to this ‘part’ in improving those neighbourhoods.
One third of the country has town and parish councils, what about the rest of the country? If local people come together to take over an ailing library, or buy some land to grow affordable food, how do the structures and funds of local and strategic government aid in doing this? If local government is enabling the development of new affordable homes and green space, how can communities shape and own these?
The We’re Right Here campaign published a blueprint for double devolution, with Community Covenants as their centrepiece reform. These would create new neighbourhood-level power-sharing arrangements between councils and local community organisations and groups – provide a democratically accountable and socially just mechanism for devolving power to the hyper-local level. So communities and councils could work together on how to tackle issues like skills and employment support, building in more of a role and agency for community organisations.
The government could build this power-sharing and partnership into other areas.
At the CLT Network we have done a lot of work around the planning system. Currently – thanks to our advocacy – the planning system defines community-led development and lowers the bar for community-led proposals on the edge of settlements. But it could also enable communities to propose sites to be allocated for community-led development without needing to create a whole neighbourhood plan; it could ensure community organisations are partners in the development of allocated sites, and can buy and stewards assets like affordable homes, community centres and open space; and direct the ‘neighbourhood share’ of the Community Infrastructure Levy to democratic and accountable community bodies where there is no parish or town council.
Another good opportunity would be energy, in line with the government’s community energy plan. For example, where Great British Energy has a role in developing new energy infrastructure, introduce a default presumption in favour of developing these in partnership with community organisations and transferring ownership to them.
These forms of partnership with community should be written into the government’s devolution agenda. They should become duties, or design principles, for strategic and local authorities when writing their plans for development, growth, skills and so on.
This would finally give those with ‘skin in the game’ a role, an agency, a power in shaping and improving their lives and their local area.