Eric Pickles, Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (CLG) today introduced the Localism Bill to Parliament. The Bill includes a New Settlement for London which will devolve additional powers to the Greater London Authority and London Boroughs.
Localism Bill
1. Summary
The Localism Bill was published today. This is the Bill that will allow the Government to abolish the LDA and fold its functions into the GLA by March 2012 at latest.
In response to the joint proposals submitted by the Mayor, Assembly and London boroughs for greater devolution to London, the Bill will:
- transfer to the GLA the functions and powers of the LDA. The Bill will abolish the LDA and transfer its residual functions to the GLA.
- transfer to the GLA the powers to undertake housing and regeneration functions currently undertaken by the HCA in London.
These changes will give the Mayor direct accountability for regeneration and economic development activities in London. Note that the Mayor already has flexibility to devolve housing and regeneration powers further to London boroughs to ensure local priorities are central to driving housing and regeneration investment.
- create powers for the Mayor to establish a new type of body within the GLA family – Mayoral Development Corporations (MDCs) - which will have special powers to take on planning and management in areas considered to be in need of regeneration. The Mayor proposes to establish an MDC to drive the regeneration of the Olympic Park and surrounding area as “London’s single most important regeneration project for the next 25 years”.
The Bill will also reform the GLA’s governance framework and:
- remove the need for initial consultation with the Assembly and functional bodies on draft strategies;
- give the Assembly the power to veto the Mayor’s final strategies by a two-thirds majority;
- replace the requirement on the Mayor to prepare six different environmental strategies so that he has to produce a single integrated environmental strategy in future;
- extend local authority openness arrangements to TFL and MDCs.
Other issues are summarised at 3 below.
2. Next steps
The timing of the remaining stages will be determined by Parliament and some elements of the Bill are likely to be controversial. Second reading should start in mid-January and the Bill will enter Committee stage in March. Royal Assent is expected for autumn 2011 and it should come into force in April 2012 as planned.
3. Other National Measures
The Bill will
- abolish Regional Strategies and regional targets outside London;
- abolish the Standards Board;
- abolish the ‘predetermination’ rules, which prevent councillors from acting on local issues because of the risk of challenge that they are biased;
- abolish Council Tax caps on local government, and instead give local residents the power to veto excessive increases, by requiring local authorities to hold a referendum on any proposed rise above a certain threshold.
- give all local authorities a General Power of Competence to do anything that is not specifically prohibited by law;
- give communities the right to bid for the ownership and management of community assets;
- give communities new rights to shape the development of the communities in which they live;
- give local authorities the power to grant a discount in business rates, enabling them to respond locally to the concerns of local businesses;
- require local authorities to allocate a proportion of Community Infrastructure Levy revenues back to the neighbourhood from which it was raised;
- give communities a right of challenge to run local authority services, get more involved in the delivery of public services and shape them in a way that will meet local preferences;
- give local residents the power to instigate, via a petition, local referendums on any local issue.
The Bill also includes measures to provide for directly elected mayors to enable 12 cities in England to have mayors from 2012, subject to referendums.
Further details from:
No comments:
Post a Comment