Agenda item

Resolved: that the Committee’s views be referred to Mayor and Cabinet.

5.1    Emma Talbot (Head of Planning) and Janet Senior (Executive Director of Resources and Regeneration) responded to questions from the Committee. The following key points were noted:

·         Improvements had been made to the decision making process for the distribution of section 106 and CIL (community infrastructure levy) monies. The intention was to align the process with the Council’s capital programme priorities.

·         Work was also taking place with neighbourhood groups on the development of their neighbourhood plans. Local assemblies would also be asked for their input, in the interests of transparency and openness.

·         There would always be a need to make difficult decisions about spending but the current proposal, to create a single, annual process for the agreement of capital and S106/CIL funds for the following year would ensure the involvement of members and improve transparency with community.

·         It was intended that there would be more detail in the budget report about capital funding, which would make the Council’s plans for allocation of CIL funding more up-front and transparent.

·         There were representatives from different directorates on the regeneration board. However, Mayor and Cabinet took the ultimate decision on major spending proposals. There was delegated authority to the Head of Planning to allocate smaller amounts of funding.

·         There were legal tests applied to section 106 funding to ensure it was fair and related to the development providing the funding. CIL funding was not ring-fenced in the same way. There were less restrictions.

·         There was a commitment from the planning department to ensure that the Council spent all of the pots of money collected and to move projects along that were not meeting their principal aims.

·         Some London Boroughs defined their whole area as a ‘local area’ for the purposes of distributing CIL funding. In Lewisham, the allocation of spending was proposed to be localised to wards. However, the new system of allocating funding would allow for some joined up allocation of spending between wards, where there was agreement by stakeholders.

5.2    In the Committee's discussions, the following key points were noted:

·         The Committee was concerned that neighbourhood forums might not be representative of their local populations. Members asked whether a pro-forma constitution could be provided to groups planning to establish neighbourhood forums in order to ensure that they included councillors in their membership.

·         There were also concerns about whether local CIL spend should be decided by ward assemblies. The Committee indicated that it would review the issue again in future. 

·         There was concern about the sustainability of neighbourhood forums. Members noted the large sums of CIL funding that would be allocated to these groups. The Committee asked whether there were mechanisms in place to return funding to the Council in the case that a neighbourhood forum failed.

·         The Committee asked whether a process could be put in place to distribute funding from areas with high levels of funding to those with less.

·         The Committee wanted to better understand the decision making process in relation to the allocation of funding. It was not clear whether funding decisions were for the Executive or full Council or whether they were delegated to officers or to Strategic Planning.

Resolved: that the Committee’s views be referred to Mayor and Cabinet, as follows:

5.3    The Committee is concerned about the sustainability of neighbourhood forums. It is also concerned that neighbourhood forums might not be representative of their local populations.

5.4    The Committee recommends that the Council produce guidance for groups establishing neighbourhood forums, to encourage the inclusion of local councillors in their membership.

5.5    The Committee also recommends that conditions be placed on funding allocated to neighbourhood forums to ensure that, should a forum fail, any funding it has been allocated will be returned to the Council for reallocation.