The Government's ambitions to expand Neighbourhood Community Budget Schemes to a further 100 areas could be undermined by a lack of Whitehall support and silo mentality, local government experts have warned.

Laura Wilkes, policy manager for the Local Government Information Unit (LGiU), has said today's announcement of a £4.3m funding boost for bottom-up, grassroots community initiatives could fail unless councils gain greater freedoms to innovate and reinvest savings in preventative services.

Under the ‘Our Place' programme, DCLG officials hope to build on the success of the 12 pilots, which were smaller scale than the major four ‘whole place' schemes, and based around bottom-up, grassroots community action.
 
The cash pot sits alongside a £350,000 financial boost to the existing pilots to speed up and improve the implementation of their programmes.

Ms Wilkes - who in May gave evidence on community budgets to the CLG Committee as a witness alongside Local Government Association chairman Sir Merrick Cockell - said: ‘Although a relatively small amount of money for each area, it will really help in providing the vital resources that are needed to get these programmes going.'

She said the LGiU learned through its work with One Norbiton in Kingston LBC that this approach to designing and delivering local services provides a real opportunity to transform services and drive benefits across local government and communities.

‘But local government can't do this alone, and to make this work we need commitment from Whitehall that all key departments, beyond DCLG, will engage,' Ms Wilkes told The MJ.

‘As things stand, departmental silos will stand in the way of pooling and aligning budgets. Without this, there is a risk that Our Place! won't deliver the outcomes that communities are striving for,' Ms Wilkes added.
 
In addition the Our Place! Programme will also establish a network of champions drawn from the neighbourhood  budget pilot areas and other sectors, to give peer to peer support and advice.