Community Right to Buy

Eric Pickles' long-awaited 'localism' bill is on its way. The Big Society is coming to a town hall near you!

One measure announced to day is the Community Right to Buy for vital community assets under threat, giving a window to allow a community bid to be put together.

Cambridge - and the rest of the country - has seen failing pub companies sell currently unprofitably pubs for housing, claiming that they are impossible to run profitably, just because they have failed to do so. New owners could in many case make a big difference but don't get an opportunity.

While Cambridge city is still well served for pubs, rural areas being much worse affected, it won't survive losses going on at the current rate. Recently we've had the Duke of Argyle and The Jubilee go and the Queen Edith and Portland Arms under threat. There are more.

It's not just pubs that could be saved by this new right - shops and community centres could be helped too. It's no panacea, planning changes are also needed - the Lib Dems in Cambridge must take responsibility for shaping our local planning rules badly - and communities will inevitably not always be able to get exactly what they want, but it is a welcome innovation.

By the end of this parliament could Eric Pickles shape up to be the best thing to have happened to local civic life in Britain since Joseph Chamberlain?

Councils told to publish expenditure over £500

The Conservative decentralisation, or localism, plan does not just mean handing powers down from central government to councils, it also means handing power directly to people. Conservatives believe in treating adults like adults and understand that people will rise to the opportunity if given responsibility. That is why Conservative policy is being enacted by the new government to publish all items of expenditure over £25,000 and why Eric Pickles is requesting councils to publish all spending over £500. This ties in with another Conservative campaign on transparency and openness in general.

By publishing expenditure freely for everyone to see people will be able to scrutinise public bodies to such an extent that it will be difficult for the bodies to get away with wasting public money so easily as they currently do. The change will also make it easier for local suppliers to bid for contracts which will be great news for the small businesses which have been so badly hit during the recession and on which our recovery will depend.

Chris Howell had already urged the city council to follow the best practices showcased by Conservative-run councils like the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead, which already publishes all expenditure over £500.

It will be important that councils release the data in a format that can be manipulated systematically and I am sure that groups such as mySociety will be quick off the mark with interesting and useful tools for analysing the data.

It seems that the new policy is due to be effective by January, but why wait? Coleridge Conservatives call on Cambridge City Council to end its culture of secrecy and start publishing the data as soon as possible. The Openness motion of which Chris supported the strengthening last year already called for change but what progress has been made?

Coallition Deal Published

More details of the Conservatives-Lib Dem coalition deal have been published this morning, and it looks like many of the best bits of the Conservatives localism agenda will actually happen - with the following commitments from the coalition:

• We will promote the radical devolution of power and greater financial autonomy to local government and community groups. This will include a review of local government finance. 
• We will rapidly abolish Regional Spatial Strategies and return decision-making powers on housing and planning to local councils, including giving councils new powers to stop ‘garden grabbing’. 
• We will give councils a general power of competence. 
• We will allow councils to return to the committee system, should they wish to. 
• We will abolish the Standards Board regime.
• We will implement the Sustainable Communities Act, so that citizens know how taxpayers’ money is spent in their area and have a greater say over how it is spent. 
• We will freeze Council Tax in England for at least one year, and seek to freeze it for a further year, in partnership with local authorities. 
• We will cut local government inspection and abolish the Comprehensive Area Assessment. 

In all, the potential for a radical shift of power to locally elected people, and a huge roll back of the powers used by central government to dictate in detail how local Councils operate. I can't wait to see some of this implemented...