Meeting documents

The following apologies for absence were received:

Eileen Macdonald, Government Office for the South East (GOSE) was no longer a member of the Board due to the dissolution of GOSE.

Lesley Clarke, Leader of Wycombe District Council, agreed to chair the meeting in the absence of the Chairman.

There were no declarations of interest.

The Minutes of the meeting held on 13 July 2010 were agreed and signed as a correct record.

Jackie Fisk, Team Leader - Policy and Partnerships

The Board received the Update Report for the Bucks Strategic Partnership Implementation Group (BSPIG).

Jackie Fisk, Team Leader, Policy and Partnerships, drew members’ attention to the key changes regarding partnership working, which were detailed on page 9.

The BSPIG had also recently looked at re-allocating any underspends on projects agreed for funding under the LAA pooled fund / BSP fund, and agreed a focus in 2011/12 on the Integrated Offender Management Project and the Family Intervention Project.

Tony Travers, London School of Economics, will facilitate a workshop, promoting consideration of the key policy and financial issues affecting partner organisations, and their collective impact on the strategic direction for Buckinghamshire.  This will help to inform the Board's deliberations about what partners wish to work together on, and how we want to go about this.

The Chairman welcomed Tony Travers from the London School of Economics to the meeting.

Tony Travers gave a powerpoint presentation - Surviving and prospering: local provision in 2011 and beyond.

During the presentation members discussed various issues which were raised, and made the following points:

·         Changes proposed by Government were radical and would go much deeper than reforms to Local Government funding. These were the most radical reforms to the Public Sector since 1945.

·         Eric Pickles' aim was to move to a system where there was no central grant, and in which local authorities would rely on Council Tax and business rates. This would work well in somewhere like Westminster (which had a very high figure for business rates) but not in an area such as Liverpool. Areas such as Westminster would need to put money into a central pool to be re-distributed.

·         Council Tax and business rates would be open to referenda.

·         The changes could lead to different rates of public sector pay in the UK.

·         The changes could lead to people moving more around the UK, as in the USA.

·         Government figures suggested that the reduction of jobs in the Public Sector would be equalled by expansion in the Private Sector. However the majority of the job growth in the last 10-15 years had been in London and the South East . There had been some job growth elsewhere, but this had mainly been in the Public Sector. Therefore the predicted increase in Private Sector jobs might not be in the same geographical areas as the decrease in Public Sector jobs.

·         It was also not clear where predicted growth in the Private Sector would take place, as the UK no longer had a large manufacturing sector. Tony Travers said that his guess was that the growth would be in the financial and business sectors. If Private Sector job increases did not meet Public Sector job losses, the cost of unemployment would be felt.

·         The New Homes Bonus would be offered as an incentive to local authorities to increase their Council Tax base. However some authorities would be limited in how they could utilise this (e.g. those which had green belt land).

·         'Spending Power' was a new concept from Government, and was calculated by adding Council Tax to Government funding.  Tony Travers' view was that District Councils were going to be ‘squeezed’ harder than the County Council in this respect and that the only way for District Councils to receive some money back would be by giving out planning permission for housing (for the New Homes Bonus).

·         Social Housing could be the next potential area of crisis.

·         The responsibility for Council Tax Benefit would be handed to District Councils in 2013 and reduced by 10%.

·         If local authorities contracted services with funding to the Voluntary and Community Sector (VCS), as proposed by the Government, where would savings be made?

·         Many VCS organisations would inevitably dissolve as funding was reduced. There was also the issue of  ...  view the full minutes text for item 5.

12 July 2011, 2:30pm, Main Hall 1, Green Park Conference Centre, Aston Clinton

12 July 2011, 2:30pm, Main Hall 1, Green Park Conference Centre, Aston Clinton