Frequently Asked Questions

Frequently Asked Question about the Act

Frequently Asked Question about Local Works

What is Local Works?

Are you cross party?

How are you funded?

How long have you been around and what is your history?

How do I organise a public meeting?

Why isn’t x organisation part of the Local Works coalition?

Frequently Asked Questions about the Act

How did the Act come about?
The Local Works coalition campaigned for 5 years to see the Act become law. This was a ‘grass-roots’ effort to mobilise citizens to write to their Members of Parliament (MPs) asking them to support the Act in Parliament. This grass roots effort involved many large public meetings (audiences ranging from 100-500 people) and the distribution of campaign leaflets.

In November 2006 the Sustainable Communities Bill was introduced to Parliament as a Private Members Bill. It was sponsored in the House of Commons by Nick Hurd MP (Conservative, Ruislip-Northwood) and in the House of Lords by Lord Marlesford. The Bill became law with full cross party support on 23 October 2007 as the Sustainable Communities Act 2007.

What is meant by 'Sustainable Communities'?
The definition of sustainable communities in the Act is deliberately broad. The Act defines the promotion of sustainable communities as any of the following 4 things:
1. Environmental, e.g. promoting local renewable energy, increasing recycling and protecting green spaces
2. Local economies, e.g. promoting local shops, local businesses and local jobs
3. Social inclusion, e.g. protecting local public services and alleviating fuel poverty and food poverty
4. Democratic involvement, e.g. increasing the ways local people can participate in local decision making and promoting new ways in which people can influence what happens locally

Which areas of the UK does the Act apply to?
The Act applies to all Local Authorities, which in the Act includes County Councils, and their respective communities, in England.

If the Welsh Assembly chooses to request to Westminster that the Act applies to them it will also apply to all Local Authorities in Wales. The Local Works coalition are campaigning for the Welsh Assembly to choose to do this. Please write to your AMs if you are a Welsh citizen (you can use this sample letter).

The Act does not apply to Scotland or Northern Ireland due to their devolved status. Local Works is considering future campaign plans to introduce similar laws in these countries.

How do I take part in the Act’s process?
First you must ensure your Local Authorities (and County Council if you have one) chooses to use the Act. See the take action section on how to do this.

If Local Authorities (and County Councils) choose to use the Act and make proposals to central government they must first engage their communities in order to gain the ideas local people have of what proposals should be made.

The way Local Authorities have to do this under the Act is by setting up, or recognising, a panel of representatives of local persons - a citizen’s panel - with whom to discuss and reach agreement on potential proposals. These citizens' panels will be open to any member of the community.

The exact way that citizens are chosen to sit on a citizens’ panel and that you are able to put ideas to the your local panel will be decided by your Local Authority. Contact them to find out how they intend to do it.

If you are keen to be a representative on one of the citizen’s panels contact your council telling them so and get other people to nominate you.

How do I know if my Local Authority (or County Council) have chosen to use the Act?
You can see which Local Authorities and County Councils have chosen to use the Act here.

Please note: if a council has recently decided to use the Act they may not have informed us yet, so if your council is not on the map contact them and check. If you find out they have decided to use the Act please inform us.

What are the requirements in the Act on Local Authorities and County Councils regarding setting up the citizens’ panels?
The Act is not prescriptive on how Local Authorities and County Councils must run the citizen’s panels. This is deliberate: every area is different and so councils, as the locally elected decision makers, should be empowered to decide on the detail of how the panels are run.

The Act does however say that the citizens’ panels:
1. must be ‘representatives of local persons’, and
2. should include ‘persons from under-represented groups’.
Effectively this means that the panels must not be made up of just the ‘usual suspects’. This Act is about engaging people in democracy and councils must make sincere attempts to engage widely and deeply with all groups in the community, e.g. younger people, older people, ethnic minorities, poorer people and tenants.

How will the citizens’ panels relate to Local Strategic Partnerships and similar bodies?
Bodies like local strategic partnerships are ideally placed to feed ideas in to the citizens’ panel.

If similar bodies, e.g. Local Area Forums or Citizens Assemblies, already exist can they be used as the citizens’ panels?
Yes. The Act allows bodies such as these to be recognised by Local Authorities and County Councils as the panels. However, as explained above, these bodies must be properly representative of local people in order to be sufficient.

What is the time frame for the Act’s process?
14 October 2008: The ‘first round’ begins. Central government (i.e. Secretary of State, Hazel Blears) invited all principal councils (i.e. district, borough, city, unitary and county) in England to make proposals on how central government can help promote local sustainability.

Councils that choose to make proposals (i.e. ‘opt in’) must then set up citizens’ panels and must ‘reach agreement’ (note: this is NOT just another consultation exercise) with local people, regarding the proposals on promoting local sustainability that councils will ultimately submit to central government via the Local Government Association. This is the point where proposals on e.g. defending Post Offices and other local services, promoting local jobs and businesses can be made by communities.

April 2009: Central government must publish the Local Spending Reports containing detailed accounts of all public money spent (by local and central government), broken down by local area.

31 July 2009: Closing date for submissions of the proposals from communities and councils.

October 2009 (approx): The next round begins. Central government invites councils again to submit proposals. The whole process re-occurs on an indefinite bases. Councils that did not choose to use the Act by submitting proposals in the first round will now have a chance to do so.

What happens after Local Authorities submit their proposals?
All proposals will be considered by the Local Government Association (LGA), appointed as the “selector”. A short-list of proposals will then be drawn up by the LGA. This is reasonable as there may be thousands of proposals and there may also be many very similar proposals that can be merged.

Central government then has a duty to ‘co-operate and try to reach agreement’ with the LGA on the proposals put forward. This is NOT consultation. In the words of Hazel Blears when she launched the Act’s process on 14th October 2008 this Act is about “turning power upside down in this country”, and added that it is about “reaching agreement where you say ‘I can do this and I can’t do that’ and then have a dialogue about the final decision to be taken together.”

This final decision results in an action plan from central government which is presented before Parliament. Central government must also publish the reasons why any proposals were not finally taken up. Government then begins to act and assist communities and councils based on the proposals that were accepted.

How is the action plan monitored?
Unless an action plan has been implemented, the Secretary of State must publish and present to Parliament a report describing the progress which has been made. This needs to be within one year of the publication of the action plan, and at yearly intervals after that.

Why is this Act different? What makes it not just another consultation exercise?
This Act is not just consultation. It is governance by dialogue and reaching agreement. Government has a legal duty to co-operate and reach agreement on the proposals made by communities and their councils. Councils also have a duty to reach agreement with communities regarding the ideas they have for help and action from central government. This is radical - we have never before had a law like this that creates a bottom-up way of doing government.

In the words of Hazel Blears when she launched the Act’s process on 14th October 2008, this Act is about “turning power upside down in this country”, and she added that it is about “reaching agreement where you say ‘I can do this and I can’t do that’ and then have a dialogue about the final decision to be taken together.”

How are parish and town councils involved in the Act’s process?
Parish and town councils can make proposals via the citizens’ panels that principal councils (Local Authorities and County Councils) must set up if they wish to use the Act. Parish and town councils can also seek representation on these citizens’ panels and Local Works strongly encourages them to do so.

How are regional assemblies, including the Greater London Assembly (GLA), involved in the Act’s process?
Regional assemblies are not part of the Act’s process i.e. communities and councils submitting proposals to central government for action and assistance. However proposals that communities and councils make may effect regional assemblies.

The GLA is also not part of the Act’s process regarding the submission of proposals to central government for action and assistance. However, as with regional assemblies, proposals that communities and councils make may effect the GLA.

Does the Act allow communities and/or councils to gain new money?
Yes councils do request for money from central government. However this is the first time ever that we have a law and thus a legal mechanism where government can not just say NO to all those requests, remember this is NOT a consultation exercise.

Councils can use the Act to simply ask for more money and this may actually result in a net saving effect with regards to all available public money. Take the following example - a council asks for funds to keep a Post Office open and the CO2 emissions saved from people not having to drive further to the next Post Office etc mean that the government do not have to spend public money elsewhere in the economy to reduce those CO2 emissions.

Councils can also use the Act to ask for a transfer of public money spent locally that is currently under central control. An example is Business Link, a central QUANGO that spends about £500 million a year in Britain. A council could take control of the Business Link money spent in their area and use it to promote local businesses more efficiently (as local people know best how to solve local problems). If there was money left over they could use it to, say, keep more local public services open, or say, fund insulation in older peoples homes to reduce fuel poverty.

Finally councils can use the Act to gain new power to make their own money. For example (this was very popular at many of the public meetings that the Local Works campaign for the Act held across the country) the council could gain the power to charge a non-domestic local rate to the large car parks of out of town superstores. It could then use that revenue to promote local shops and more vibrant inner town areas.

Will there be a conflict of interest between parish councils and Citizen panels?
Parish councils and citizens will both be able to be represented on the citizens panels. It is important that citizens ideas are directly gained as this Act is all about re-engaging people in democracy. It is expected that in most cases parish councils and citizens will work together and be in agreement as to the proposals that they will ultimately put to central government for action and assistance.

However there may be disagreements and conflicts that need to be resolved but that is the stuff of democracy. In such a situation the principle council will be running the panel and will need to have a system in place that determines a fair and democratic way of resolving such conflicts.

How will councils ensure the public become involved as it can already be difficult to get the public to e.g. stand for election to a parish council?
Yes it is true, people are fed up with democracy, as the recent Power Inquiry (chaired by Baroness Helena Kennedy) showed. However that same (substantial) study into Britain’s democracy also showed that most people will get involved if they see that democracy is meaningful, i.e. if they can have real influence over decisions which affect their life. This Act provides a mechanism for doing that like never before in law.

Local Works held dozens of public meetings across the country whilst campaigning to see the Act made law. Turnouts were huge, averaging well over 150. MPs that spoke at these meetings were astonished. Local Works is a coalition of over 90 citizen organisations with a total membership base of several million people. These organisations are keen to get there members to use the Act.

Remember, the chance of this Act succeeding will be determined by the number of councils and citizens who choose to use it. Parish councils should be encouraging other parish, town and principal councils and local residents to use the Act to ensure it is a success.

What safeguards will stop unprofitable enterprises being ‘propped-up’ by public money?
Firstly, an important point regarding economic principles and the concept of ‘unprofitable’: many business practices currently operating in our society are able to be profitable because they simply do not pay all the costs that are incurred via their business practices and these costs are thus not reflected in the price of the goods and services they sell. Meanwhile, many unprofitable practices remain unprofitable because all the benefits of their operations are not internalised in the final price of their goods or services (see the Post Office and net CO2 example above). Markets that enterprises operate under are not laws of nature, they are created, moulded and governed by the legal laws and rules we choose to make.

This Act provides councils and communities with an excellent opportunity to start to internalise the external costs and benefits involved in many enterprises. E.g.
• Charging a supermarket a fee for supply local schools with apples from Poland when there are orchards a few miles away (this example came up at a public meeting held during the campaign for the Act).
• Subsidising a local credit union because of the increased (measurable) trade it generates in the high street.
• Changing the planning rules so that before a local service (e.g. a police station or community hospital) is closed the net economic and social impacts of local job losses, people having drive further to work and access that service etc are measured.

If an enterprise is supported by public money so that the individual gains benefit/profit irrespective of the enterprises use to the community it is likely to be derisive. That is exactly why the Act puts the community and councils are in the driving seat with regards to the assistance and help they request from central government.

What are the criteria for the proposals communities and Local Authorities make to central government?
For a proposals to be valid it must reach two simple criteria:
1. It must promote sustainable communities as defined in the Act (i.e. promotion of local economies, environmental protection, social inclusion and democratic participation; see above for more details of this definition).
2. It must be something that central government can do (and is not doing already) to help or assist communities and councils promote sustainable communities.

What sort of proposals could communities and Local Authorities make to central government?
For examples please see pages 2 and 3 of our ‘broadsheet’ guide to the Act. You can download it here. For copies of this broadsheet to distribute locally place contact us.

Can areas join up to put forward collective proposals?
Absolutely. The Act allows for councils and their communities to put forward joint proposals. Local Works strongly encourage that councils join together and put forward joint proposals.

FAQs about Local Works

What is Local Works?
Local Works is a coalition of over 90 national civic and environmental organisations. The coalition existed for one purpose - to see the Sustainable Communities Bill become law. This campaign was successful in October 2008 when the Sustainable Communities Bill passed through Parliament and became the Sustainable Communities Act.

The Local Works coalition is now campaigning to promote the implementation of the Act’s process. Only if communities and councils choose to use the Act will it be a success.

Are you cross party?
Yes. The Sustainable Communities Act also has full cross party support. We do not represent or support any political party.

How are you funded?
We have two sources of funding.
1. Some of the national organisations in the coalition give donations or regular amounts.
2. Our individual supporters are also welcome, but not required, to give donations (and many do).

How long have you been around and what is your history?
Local Works was started as a project by the New Economics Foundation in 2002 following their Ghost Town Britain and Ghost Town Britain II reports. It then became the coalition for the Sustainable Communities Bill - with the aim of reversing Ghost Town Britain and creating sustainable communities.

Now that the Sustainable Communities Act is law the Local Works coalition is now campaigning to promote the implementation of the Act’s process. Only if communities and councils choose to use the Act will it be a success.

How do I organise a public meeting?
Please contact us if you wish to organise a public meeting so we can help you with admin back-up, publicity and advice.

Why isn’t x organisation part of the Local Works coalition?
The Local Works coalition is continually expanding and there are a number of national organisations we are trying to get on board. By all means, if you are a member of an organisation that is not currently an official supporter please write to their head office and tell them you think they should be and to contact us!

Primary links

Frequently Asked Questions

Frequently Asked Questions about the Act

FAQs about Local Works