DfE offers councils cash boost for community budgets pilot
Lauren Higgs
Thursday, August 25, 2011
Councils taking part in a pilot scheme to support families with complex needs are to receive a cash boost of 20,000 from the Department for Education (DfE), CYP Now has learned.
The money, which will be paid as a supplement to the early intervention grant, will be available to local authorities that take part in the second phase of the government’s community budgets pilot from April 2012.
The first 16 areas to trial community budgets, which include Kent and the London Borough of Westminster, began the pilot in April. In June, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg invited more councils to sign up to the second phase of the programme with the aim of getting 50 more on board this year and a further 60 by 2012/13.
In a letter to local authorities, the DfE said: "We are now able to offer a small amount of financial support to those second phase areas that want to get their community budget project plans written in advance of April 2012, so they can hit the ground running."
Meanwhile, the DfE is working on a programme of support to help councils make the most of community budgets, alongside the Local Government Group and the Children’s Improvement Board.
The DfE is also looking for 10 local authorities involved in either phase one or two community budgets pilots to create new "dissemination hubs". These hubs will receive £50,000 in both 2011/12 and 2012/13 to act as regional experts on community budgets, offering fellow local authorities advice, support and evidence-based best practice.
Prime Minister David Cameron wants community budgets to be used to help the 120,000 most troubled families get back on track by 2015.
Although community budgets do not provide councils with extra money, they allow authorities to "pool budgets" by pulling together funding from a variety of local sources.
For example, in Islington, the council, NHS trust, Jobcentre Plus, probation, police, housing and voluntary sector groups are pooling staff and more than £6m of resources for their community budget plan.
Local authorities, including Hull, Westminster and Blackpool, are using their community budgets to fund family intervention programmes and "family champions" to help workless families into jobs, through the Working Families Everywhere campaign.
