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Localis response to Budget 2024

Localis CEO Jonathan Werran, said: “This epochal Budget, the first by a Labour Government in fourteen years, should give place-based policy a role from central casting in delivering the chancellor’s priority calls for economic growth, new infrastructure and the restoration of public services.

“The increased powers and setting of trailblazer deals as default to the combined authorities of Greater Manchester and the West Midlands as first tier stars of devolution further impresses the desired mayoral-led direction of travel for marshalling local growth and reshaping local public services in line with the government’s national missions.

“What would make all the difference from the previous government’s levelling up agenda is the degree and extent to which the expenditure of political capital will realise this government’s vision of English devolution in this parliament, and how local growth plans are made to fit like a Russian doll within a modern national industrial strategy and wider constitutional reform.

“The Budget offers an anticipated triage of immediate resourcing crises facing councils with real terms funding increases of £1.3bn in grant funding and £600m extra money earmarked for social care. A 1.5% real terms uplift from this year in day-to-day spending suggests a tight outlook for local public finances, however, and for surety of local government’s revenue financing we will have to look beyond to the next set of spending reviews, and the chance to realise at long last the promise of multi-year settlements.

“By contrast, capital funding is an easier topic for chancellors to debate, and although the end to ‘tournament financing’ of individual bidding pots in favour of single place budgets is much to be welcomed, questions may well remain over how measures in this year’s Budget will unlock the sizable private and institutional investment in all types of infrastructure - digital, energy, housing and transport - required to deliver radical place transformation.

“In this sense too, the £500m announcement to top up the Affordable Homes Programme in 2025/26 to £5bn and full council retention of right to buy revenues are good totemic announcements, but addressing the scale of the financing and resourcing for the volume and pace of new builds we urgently need is as important as any planning reforms and support to the planning profession.

“Finally, is this a Budget for high streets? Our town and city centres openly display the strength of the links between economic and social prosperity in our localities. The promise of permanently lower business rates from 2026/27, and more immediately from next year 40% relief as support for the retail, leisure and hospitality sectors is one step in the right direction for securing the foundational local economy, as is support against the scourge of shoplifting and anti-social behaviour.”

www.localis.org.uk

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Public good procurement could generate £3.9 billion for local communities

Public bodies are now being urged to use their purchasing power to tackle poverty and inequality within local communities and create a good jobs industry in the UK in a new report ‘Public Good Procurement’ issued on behalf of the grassroots #BetterForUs campaign run by award-winning community enterprise, Aspire Community Works.

Drawing on its own lived experience of the procurement process, the report argues that all too often public procurement pushes wages down, fails to address deep-rooted inequalities and puts pressure on the public purse through subsidising low paying employers who offer bad work detrimental to people’s health. 

This puts good employers who pay the Real Living Wage at a disadvantage within the procurement process, leading to a spiral of downward wages within the procurement process and negative public value.

The report urges the UK Government to take the lead in delivering maximum public value across the country through raising the standards in how public authorities spend £390 billion every year as part of its national missions to promote growth and opportunity. The report calls on the UK Government to:

• require the Real Living Wage as the default position for all public contracts irrespective of value, lifting thousands of people out of poverty;

• require good working conditions as the default position for all public contracts irrespective of value providing high quality and sustainable opportunities for people working on public contracts; particularly for those in traditionally low paying occupations;

• introduce a target to support Good Works organisations that work with people who are disadvantaged by the labour market to promote a more inclusive economy and bring more people back into the workforce;

• highlight the mission of public good procurement and links key objectives to the Sustainable Development Goals within its forthcoming National Procurement Policy Statement.

Dr Katharine Sutton, author of the report said: “This is a once in a life-time opportunity for a new Government to stamp its authority on a new Procurement Act due to be introduced in February 2025. If only one percent of the procurement spend in the UK was reserved for positive action employment programmes this would generate £3.9 billion for local communities and Good Work organisations that aim to support and sustain people into and in employment. These programmes could take place within in-house delivery, under the auspices of private contractor or run by social enterprises themselves.

Using public procurement to set the standards and act as an example for all employers is an economic imperative that will deliver inclusive growth that makes a real difference to people’s lives.”

The report includes recommendations to other public bodies and practical guidance on how public procurement can be used for the public good.

www.betterforus.org.uk

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