Plymouth residents could run city services from November under new Act
THE council is set to lose its monopoly on delivering services.
From November this year local people will be able to seize the reins from Plymouth City Council if they think they can do a better job.
Under the new Localism Act, community and voluntary groups, and even council staff, will be able to express an interest in taking over the running of some services.
The change, ordered by the Government, was approved last month by the city's Cabinet and now councillors are thrashing out the details of how the process will be managed.
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The council's overview and scrutiny management board, meeting tomorrow, will hear that the council should start accepting expressions of interest in taking over services after November 5.
Councillors will have to draw up a timetable, setting out when people can challenge the council.
Where challenges are accepted, the council will have to go through a procurement process.
The so-called Community Right to Challenge will not apply to some services, including those delivered in partnership with the NHS.
Communities Minister Andrew Stunell said the change gave communities the opportunity to be the driving force.
Comments
by Nevman
Tuesday, September 04 2012, 8:30AM
“'Democratic' tokenism at its worst. There's an awful gap between community groups thinking they can do a job better, and actually having all of the skills, time and resources to carry it out. Elsewhere, this has been a disaster - for branch libraries, for example, which often struggle to find enough community staff to cover anything but minimal opening hours.
Typical Plymouth - always slow to follow a trend, yet never willing to learn from others' mistakes!”