Policy Statements and Initiatives
DH: As part of a £30m Healthy Communities Challenge Fund, English towns will be invited to come up with innovative new ways to improve the health of their inhabitants and bid for a £5m matching fund grant. Ideas could include increasing the number of cycle lanes, walking promotion schemes and providing local healthy food initiatives
There will be a two stage selection process for deciding which areas will become 'Healthy Towns:
* In the first stage, they will outline their top level plans to be submitted by the 11 July 2008
* In stage 2, local areas that are successful will be invited to submit a full bid for funding, by September 2008
Press release ~ DH - Obesity ~ Healthy Weight, Healthy Lives ~ Healthy Communities Challenge Fund ~ Cycling Demonstration Towns ~ Bikeability scheme ~ Everyday Sport
DH: The Government's commitment to tackling health inequalities and helping the most deprived communities has been set out by Health Secretary Alan Johnson in Progress and Next Steps, together with details of £34m to fund programmes to support local communities. The document also identifies how the PSA target for Health Inequalities can be met by 2010, with spending in the NHS in England increasing from just over £90bn in 2007-08 to almost £110bn in 2010-11.
Press release ~ Progress and Next Steps ~ PSA target for Health Inequalities ~ Health Inequalities National Intervention Tool ~ Tackling Health Inequalities: A Programme for Action (2003) ~ DH – Health Inequalities
DfT: Greater Manchester has been given the green light to proceed with its £2.8bn bid to the Government's Transport Innovation Fund (TIF). Their proposals combine investment in public transport with a local congestion charging scheme.
Greater Manchester's proposed congestion charge is designed around a 'twin cordon' system which will operate at peak times only, when congestion is at its worst. The scheme will use tag & beacon technology supported by Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR). To ensure that people have real choices over how & when they travel, the majority of these improvements are planned to be delivered before the introduction of the local congestion charge in mid-2013.
They will conduct a full public consultation on their proposals to ensure that as many people as possible have the chance to have their say. Subject to the outcome of the public consultation, the government expect an application for Conditional approval in the autumn.
Press release ~ Greater Manchester Future Transport ~ Greater Manchester Transport ~ Transport Innovation Fund (TIF)
WAG: The Welsh Assembly Government is providing up to £5m extra for their mortgage rescue scheme to stop homeowners who face repossession from being made homeless. Under the scheme, grants can be used by Housing Associations to buy a share of the mortgage or buy properties outright and then rent them back to the former owner.
The funding is intended as a ‘last resort’ measure and will deal with the most urgent cases which would otherwise result in homelessness, giving rise to additional pressures on social housing waiting lists and use of temporary accommodation.
DCSF: Ed Balls has set out the yet another phase of the Government's School Improvement Strategy - National Challenge – with yet more promises to transform schools, raise results in English & maths and tackle underachievement by young people.
The Children's Plan sets out that by 2020 at least 90% of children will achieve the equivalent of five higher level GCSEs by age 19. National Challenge is intended to help the government to meet the goal that in every secondary school - at least 30% of its pupils will achieve five good GCSEs including English and maths by 2011.
Ed Balls announced that he would double the £200m previously announced in the budget to £400m to help local authorities and schools. To kick-start the National Challenge, he asked local authorities to set out by the end of the school summer term, individual action plans for how they will transform results in each National Challenge school from now until 2011. He also asked governing bodies to hold meetings as soon as possible to review how they would need to support their Heads and teachers in improving results.
Press release ~ National Challenge documents and case studies ~ Government's School Improvement Strategy ~ Children's Plan ~ Teachernet - London (City) Challenge scheme ~ DCSF – City Challenge
DH: The government has launched a new multi-million pound Carers Strategy to improve the lives of Britain's army of carers. It is supported by £255m of new investment to implement some immediate steps. There are currently about 5.2 million carers in England and Wales, and nearly half of them provide more than 20 hours care a week and over a million provide more than 50 hours care per week.
The demand for care is expected to rise in the future, with the number of people over 85 (those most in need of care) rising by over 50% in the next ten years.
Press release ~ Carers Strategy ~ DH - Carers ~ New Deal for carers ~ Standing Commission on Carers ~ Directgov – caring for someone ~ Carers UK
BERR: New targets to improve the productivity, efficiency & sustainability of the UK's construction sector have been unveiled by the Government and industry with the launch of the joint industry-Government Strategy for Sustainable Construction which sets out challenging, but achievable, targets to be delivered by industry. These include commitments to:
* Recruit 230,000 additional trained construction workers by 2010
* Cut the number of work-related deaths by 10% year on year
* Supply an extra 13,500 apprenticeship placements by 2010
* Achieve a 50% reduction in the amount of construction, demolition & excavation waste to landfill
* Ensure 25% of materials used in construction projects are responsibly sourced by 2012
* Ensure all construction projects over £1m have biodiversity surveys carried out & instigate the necessary actions by 2012
The Strategic Forum for Construction has also published its 'Construction Commitments' to promote best practice across the industry, along with its latest four-year targets to ensure their delivery. These commitments support the Strategy for Sustainable Construction.
Press release ~ Strategy for Sustainable Construction ~ Strategic Forum for Construction - Construction Commitments ~ Constructing Excellence in the Built Environment ~ EU's Energy Performance of Buildings Directive~ CIOB – Site waste management plans ~ WRAP – Construction ~ NetRegs - Site Waste Management Plans ~ SWMP checklist ~ Site Waste Management Plans - Envirowise ~ Environment Agency - Site Waste Management ~ UK Green Building Council ~ Low Carbon Building Programme (LCBP) ~ LCBP Phase 2 ~ Code for Sustainable Homes ~ Green Alliance ~ Energy Savings Trust ~ Planning Policy Statement 1: Delivering Sustainable Development ~ Sustainable Development Commission
Defra: Communities interested in finding out more about hosting an underground disposal facility for radioactive waste have been invited to open no-commitment discussions with the Government. The government claims that a geological disposal facility will provide a permanent solution for our higher activity radioactive waste. Some of this waste is currently in storage, but most will only become waste over the next century as nuclear facilities are decommissioned.
The invitation was part of the Government's Managing Radioactive Waste Safely White Paper published last week, and follows a consultation in June 2007 about how a community voluntarism & partnership approach to siting a facility could work. This followed from the recommendations of the independent Committee on Radioactive Waste Management (CoRWM) who carried out extensive expert, public and stakeholder consultation on the best long term management option for protecting the public and the environment.
Press release ~ Dedicated public information website ~ United Kingdom Radioactive Waste Inventory (UKRWI) ~ Managing Radioactive Waste Safely White Paper ~ Consultation on funded decommissioning programme guidance for new nuclear power stations - BERR ~ Nuclear Power - BERR ~ Decommissioning and Waste - BERR ~ White Paper on Nuclear Power ~ Committee on Radioactive Waste Management (CoRWM) ~
CLG: In an attempt to illustrate the ‘full breadth of its work’ the government is publishing - Managing the Impacts of Migration: a Cross Government Approach – which looks at the national context for migration to the UK and the benefits it brings.
It then examines the local impacts of migration on our communities & services and sets out the Government's programme of current & future work to support local government and its partners in maximising the benefits of migration. The Government's commitments to managing migration focus on five key areas:
* Strengthening our borders
* Improving population data
* Providing funding where needed to help manage the transitional impacts of migration from April
* Protecting workers
* Promoting integration
Press release ~
ScotGov: Projects ranging from a skate park in Buckie to a Friday night music & film making project in Glenrothes are among 110 youth projects the length & breadth of Scotland that are to receive a share of almost £1.2m. The money comes from the proceeds of crime and is to be used in the latest strand of the Government's CashBack for Communities scheme to make a real difference to the lives of young people.
YouthLink Scotland will be running a second round application process to allow those organisations who did not have enough time to submit applications to round one the opportunity to do so. The deadline for the second round of applications has been agreed as Friday 29 August 2008.
