Making our systems less top-heavy
The Government has progressively made the employment and skills system less top-heavy, devolving responsibility to those much closer to the ground. This includes:
- creating the Working Neighbourhood Fund which has passed financial resources directly to local areas;
- progressing DWP's City Strategy Pathfinders, which have been developing new and innovative ways of bringing together the work of government agencies, local government and the private and third sectors; and
- introducing the new Multi-Area Agreement (MAA) process that, building on City Strategy, is allowing local areas to develop their own solutions and allows central government to devolve greater responsibility.
The Government has been asked for greater clarity about how it sees these initiatives developing and supporting each other in the future. In the spirit of our partnership approach, this paper sets out our thinking, which should be seen as part of an on-going dialogue about the best ways to build truly responsive services.
Working Neighbourhoods Fund
Through the Working Neighbourhoods Fund the Government is providing £1.5 billion over three years to support local authorities to do more to tackle worklessness and low levels of skills and enterprise in their communities. Allocated to local authorities with high levels of worklessness and deprivation, the Fund is not ringfenced and provides maximum flexibility. We are looking to local authorities and their partners to decide where best to invest the funds in the most effective and efficient routes to bring about change needed locally.
We have also set aside £50 million to reward Working Neighbourhoods areas that make good progress. This reward funding will be paid to local authorities and communities that are most successful in tackling worklessness and increasing skills and enterprise levels.
Communities and Local Government (CLG) has recently announced a review to report in the autumn to consider how the Working Neighbourhoods Fund can make a real and lasting difference on the ground. Alongside this, CLG are developing a learning network to enable partnerships to identify and share good, innovative practices and to develop their capacity through the National Improvement and Efficiency Strategy.
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