Liveability Criteria
The expectations of the programme - who lays down the rules and
how do we know it has succeeded?
Office of the Deputy Prime Minister
The prime focus of the scheme is
to deliver significant service improvements to demonstrate the
ability to provide better sustainable management and maintenance
for any investment in physical improvements.
Background
The Government's programme for
improving the quality of public spaces and local environments is
set out in
Living Places - Cleaner, Safer, Greener
(
ODPM October 2002).
Its aim is for everyone to have access to high quality public
spaces that cater for the diverse needs of communities. ODPM has
the lead role in implementing the objectives of the programme and
for co-ordinating its delivery across Government.
Sustainable
communities: building for the future announced significant new
initiatives and funding for delivering
ODPM's commitments
and for creating decent places, including the Liveability
Fund.
The decline in quality of public
space services, particularly urban green spaces, and the need for
investment to tackle the legacy of dereliction and backlogs of
repairs in many areas are well documented (see
Green Spaces,
Better Places - final report of the Urban Green Spaces
Taskforce,
DTLR
May 2002). However, although badly needed, directing new funding to
improve existing or create new spaces without regard to how such
spaces are to be maintained can add to existing pressures on local
services. This works against all our efforts for making places more
attractive, cleaner and safer, and more sustainable.
Good planning and quality design
are important for creating and transforming public spaces, but
these need to go hand-in-hand with effective management and
maintenance for ensuring they remain fit-for-purpose. Better and
more sustainable use of available resources is also vital for
raising the quality of our parks and public spaces as well as local
service delivery.
New Grant Scheme
The Liveability Fund is being
used to pilot a new grant scheme over the next three years. This
scheme has been designed to ensure that new investment in local
environments and liveability take account of the capacity of
recipients to manage and maintain the quality of outputs. It aims
to test new approaches for tackling public space and local
liveability issues that focus on and link service improvement,
investment in innovative new parks and public spaces, and action
learning and sharing of good practice throughout the process.
Objectives
The objectives of the scheme are
to:
- encourage local authorities to adopt strategic planning and
good practice in sustainable management and maintenance of the
local environment;
- develop performance management systems for improving service
delivery on the local environment, based on the application of Best
Value, CPA and Beacon
Council principles;
- encourage better use of funding available to local authorities
for local environment management through closer integration with
complementary programmes and initiatives, such as housing,
education and sport, health, regeneration and renewal programmes,
Lottery, and local partnerships; and
- build effective networks for local authorities to learn and
share lessons for raising the quality of services and for tackling
local liveability issues.
Action learning programme
Pilot authorities will need to
reflect commitment in their proposals to sharing the process and
disseminating lessons and good practice.
Pilot authorities will be
expected to work closely with the Improvement and Development
Agency (IDeA), who are contracted by
ODPM to monitor,
identify and disseminate good practice, and evaluate the
performance of pilot authorities and the overall scheme. IDeA will
also seek to establish a baseline picture of each pilot authority
so progress can be monitored throughout the scheme and to be able
to demonstrate what has been achieved as a result of the additional
funding.
How the scheme will work
Key elements
The key elements of the grant
scheme, which are explained in more detail later, are as
follows:
- the scheme is designed to develop and assess excellence in
service delivery and innovation in transforming the quality of
local environments;
- 27 local authorities have been selected evenly across the nine
English regions, through the Government Offices, to pilot the
scheme;
- the scheme will provide grants to the pilot authorities to
deliver innovative and challenging programmes for creating new
parks and public spaces, and improving the quality and
effectiveness of their environment and liveability service;
- pilot authorities have agreed clear objectives, targets and
outcomes for service and physical improvements; and
- an action-learning programme to enable all local authorities to
engage and share the lessons and good practice arising from the
pilots throughout the process.
Service improvements
The selected pilot authorities
will be invited to develop detailed proposals that set out their
objectives, actions, indicators/measures of success, timetables
setting out the appropriate milestones and overall deadlines, and
clearly identifying the proposed service improvements and related
physical improvements. These proposals have been agreed with the
relevant Government Offices (e.g. in our case Government Office
South East - GOSE) and
ODPM to provide the
basis for the award of grants and management of the pilots. The
scheme will provide incentive grants (revenue) to help with the
costs involved in implementing service improvements. We expect that
these grants will range from £200k to £400k.
CABE
says that space could also provide additional support to pilot
authorities through the Strategic Enabling Scheme in the form of
free expert help in developing strategic planning for public
spaces. Pilots would be encouraged to develop proposals for capital
investment as part of this process, especially to identify
priorities for tackling local liveability issues, and opportunities
for forming partnerships and pooling resources with complementary
council programmes.
Monitoring and Evaluation
The detailed proposals to be
developed by the pilot authorities will need to set out appropriate
milestones for delivering service delivery and physical
improvements against which progress can be monitored. They should
identify the indicators that will be used to measure progress and
should set challenging targets for service level and physical
improvements. Although
IDeA will have the
overall responsibility for monitoring and evaluating the programme,
local authorities will be expected to work pro-actively with
them.