DCN Budget Submission March 2017

The County Councils Network (CCN), District Councils’ Network (DCN) and Rural Services Network (RSN) have jointly welcomed the Government’s intention to move to 100% retention of business rates by 2020. Clearly this is ambitious, complex, and challenging, but our networks can support this if it enables further devolution, ensures key services are sustainable over time, and allows localism to flourish.

We support this ambition on the basis that it will enable further local autonomy and self-reliance, as well as encouraging and rewarding future growth.

Clearly, the new system will be highly complex to design, but it must be made as simple and as fair as possible, and needs led from day one to ensure that local authorities are incentivised and rewarded for achieving growth.

Any new system of funding must be sustainable for local authorities in the short, medium and long-term. Equally the impact of Government policies on major infrastructure and commercial decisions, e.g. power stations, to dramatically affect an area’s business rates prospects must be recognised and taken into account.

It will be crucial that all areas can invest in long-term growth, in consultation with businesses, including the ability to use an infrastructure levy if there is agreement locally.

Depending on whether the economy grows or declines, there will be both risks and opportunities for local government. Both district and county areas will have a significant national role to play in supporting, encouraging and promoting growth. However, this must be adequately supported by Government through a system of appropriate incentives and rewards. And Government funding and strategies for capital infrastructure investment must be demand-led and not purely focused on cities.

Equally, atypical pressures on demand-led services in county and district areas – which continue to rise – must be fully recognised through the fair funding review and business rates system. This will play a key role in adjusting funding for adult social care, public health and prevention, supporting the NHS and funding the everyday services people value most.

Our networks have, therefore, collectively identified core principles that are integral to ensuring an effective and fair funding system. Alongside these principles we have identified key issues which must be addressed in relation to the needs review, the new business rates system and wider funding and investment.

We remain committed to working with the Local Government Association (LGA), professional organisations such as Cipfa, ministers and relevant Whitehall departments, to support the re-localisation of business rates. While our networks will reply individually to these consultations, our responses will also reflect the shared principles that we have identified in this document.

Cllr Paul Carter, Chairman, County Councils Network

Cllr Neil Clarke, Chairman, District Councils’ Network

Cllr Cecilia Motley, Chairman, Rural Services Network

For list of full principles please click link to: 100% Business Rate Retention – CCN, RSN and DCN Shared Principles

In a groundbreaking report last year, renowned health think-tank The King’s Fund dubbed district councils ‘the sleeping giants’ of public health and social care.

As a network the DCN is committed to taking forward the 10 key report recommendations. The paper acknowledged strong evidence of good practice among districts. The report also highlighted that districts must build on this evidence base and cement district relationships within the new healthcare architecture.

To harness this commitment and capture the enthusiasm of senior district members and officers for advancing this agenda, we recently held a sell-out conference at Local Government House to explore and take forward the role of districts in public health and health prevention.

The conference explored examples of preventative health intervention from across the country and further identified the great potential we have to do significantly more at district level.

This conference also heralded the launch of the DCN Public Health Task Force, which is chaired by that formidable champion of public health, Professor John Ashton. The panel includes stakeholder representation from the Department of Health, Public Health England, NHS Clinical Commissioners, the Local Government Association, the Association of Directors of Public Health as well as county and district members.

The Task Force has set in motion an action plan to fulfil all 10 recommendations made by The King’s fund and provide a national conduit between the health service and district councils. This is vital if districts are to engage in a meaningful way with Health and Wellbeing Boards and get a hearing in the development of Sustainable Transformation Plans.

Not surprisingly, there is huge support among our members for promoting the district role in prevention into mainstream health and social care policy. The district difference delivers significant upstream savings for the health service. For example , every £1 spent by a district council adapting homes where a serious fall is likely to otherwise occur could save the NHS £69.37 over 10 years.

It is clear that districts deliver on prevention. With the prospect of a fiscal ‘reset’ at the Autumn Statement and a ‘reset’ within NHS bodies to improve their financial and operational performance, the DCN will again make the case for equity with the rest of the local government family.

Districts are well placed to ensure that STPs reflect the health and social care needs of the geographies they cover. If all 201 districts are fully engaged with this agenda it will deliver a telling and cost-effective difference in our localities across England.

Cllr Neil Clarke MBE is chairman of the District Councils’ Network

The call is contained in an editorially-independent report from The King’s Fund entitled: ‘The district council contribution to public health: a time of challenge and opportunity’.

Commissioned by the District Councils’ Network (DCN) earlier this year, the study issued 19 November 2015 by the network investigates how district councils currently support community health and wellbeing and makes recommendations for how this role could be widened to deliver greater local health outcomes – while also providing cost savings and efficiencies.

Major district council contributions to health outcomes identified in the report include:

• The efficient and high quality management and ownership of affordable housing – the report authors classed housing costs as ‘the most important factor in the relationship between housing and poverty’;
• Continued delivery of home adaptations to prevent avoidable domestic accidents, falls and trips which burden the health service;
• Leisure services provided by districts which contribute to estimated annual £1.7bn averted NHS spend from sport;
• Provision of green spaces for residents;
• Delivery of homelessness prevention services and support of vulnerable residents.

But in order to become integrated into mainstream health policy, The King’s Fund authors advised districts to focus on three key factors:

• To continue leading innovation in service delivery;
• To strengthen their enabling role in the health of their communities;
• To prove effectiveness and show return on investment.

Among ten recommendations for maximising district impact on local health improvement, the report urges the DCN to make sure its members are at the core of the integration and devolution agenda. It also calls for greater collaboration between local government, Clinical Commissioning Groups and better alignment between health, social care and preventative services through Health and Wellbeing Boards.

Report co-author, David Buck, who is senior fellow, Public Health and Inequalities at the King’s Fund, said: “For too long district councils have been the sleeping giants of public health.

“Maximising their role in service delivery and the wider determinants of health will be crucial for the millions of people who live in district council areas.”

Further reading:

Download The King’s Fund report: “The district council contribution to public health: a time of challenge and opportunity” – authors David Buck and Phoebe Dunn

Download Infographics version of The King’s Fund report: