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Budget 2015: policy decisions by practice area

Local Government Lawyer sets out some of the key policy decisions in the Budget announced by the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

Property/Projects

  • Compulsory purchase consultation – The Government has launched a consultation into the compulsory purchase regime “to make it clearer, faster and fairer to support brownfield development”.
  • Land and property reform – The Government will implement a new commercially-driven model of land and property asset management across the central government estate, based on departments paying market-level rents for the freehold assets they own. The Government will create a new central body or bodies to own and manage relevant property and land assets. Subject to legislation the model will be operational by March 2017.
  • City Deals – The Government believes there is merit in extending the City Deal model further in Scotland and Wales. The Government is opening negotiations with local partners and the Scottish and Welsh Governments towards City Deals for Cardiff, Aberdeen and Inverness.  In Inverness, the Government is making funding available in 2015-16 to help progess the deal.
  • Enterprise Zones – The Government will expand Enterprise Zones at Mersey Waters, MIRA, Humber, Manchester, Tees Valley (Prairie) and Oxford Science Vale, and will change the designation of two sites at Leeds Enterprise Zone to include Enhanced Capital Allowances. The Government will also extend the Enterprise Zone at Discovery Park and create new Enterprise Zones at Blackpool and Plymouth, subject to business cases.
  • Croydon Growth Zone – The Government commits, subject to a business case, to provide £7m revenue funding from 2015-16 to 2019-20 to the Greater London Authority to enable them to support the delivery of the Croydon Growth Zone. This will enable the delivery of over 4,000 homes and 10,000 jobs.
  • West Yorkshire devolution deal – The Government has agreed a new devolution deal with the West Yorkshire Combined Authority that sees the combined authority take further responsibility over skills, transport, employment, housing and business support.
  • Brent Cross regeneration scheme – The Government will provide £97m funding and ring fence the local 50% share of business rate growth to support the London Borough of Barnet and the Greater London Authority plans for the regeneration of Brent Cross, unlocking 7,500 new homes.
  • London Land Commission – The Government announced in the London Long Term Economic Plan (LTEP) that it would launch a London Land Commission (LLC) tasked with producing: the most comprehensive database of public sector land in the country; and mapping of brownfield land in London. The Government is to go further, with £1m RDEL funding to allow it to carry out these functions; and is agreeing the terms of reference between the Greater London Authority and the government on the LLC.
  • Sharing pilots – The Government will launch two pilots in Leeds City Region and Greater Manchester in 2015-16, to trial local sharing initiatives in the areas of shared transport, shared public space and health and social care.
  • National platform for sharing central and local government space – The Government will build on the Space for Growth programme by exploring with the Local Government Association and partner organisations in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales, the extension of a national platform to advertise spare central and local government space to businesses, individuals and community groups where appropriate. The Government will explore options for delivering this in the most efficient way, including an accessible and user-friendly registration process.

Planning 

  • Devolution of planning powers – The Government will consult on devolving planning powers over sightlines and wharves to the Mayor of London, allowing the Mayor to accelerate provision of new homes by reducing planning delays.
  • Renting out parking spaces – The Government will update its planning guidance to local suthorities in March 2015 to clarify that it should be possible for non-residential properties to rent out their existing parking spaces without requiring planning permission, provided there are no substantive planning concerns.

Housing

  • Estates regeneration study – The Government will fund a study into the challenges faced by some of the largest housing estates in the Midlands, to help to frame future regeneration interventions in the region and identify approaches which can be applied in other areas.
  • Housing Zones – The Government is announcing the first 20 Housing Zones outside London with the potential to deliver 34,000 homes and will continue to work with eight other potential Housing Zones. In total these have potential to deliver up to 45,000 new homes.
  • Barking Riverside – The Government continues to work with the Greater London Authority, London Borough of Barking and Dagenham and developers to unlock Barking Riverside, to support the construction of up to 11,000 homes. Transport for London will shortly launch the next public consultation on the proposed route of the railway extension.
  • Northstowe – The Government intends to create a joint venture with a private sector partner to lead development on the Northstowe site. The Government expects that three quarters of the homes started on the public-sector owned site by 2020 will be built under direct contract with the public sector, with the rest in that period delivered through serviced plots in line with the public sector’s master-plan.
  • Ebbsfleet – The Government will shortly consult on a specification to deliver a master-plan at Ebbsfleet, and has asked the Ebbsfleet Urban Development Corporation to work with the Government by the Spending Review on a prioritised list of infrastructure needs for Ebbsfleet.
  • Bicester – The Government supports Bicester’s ambitions to become a garden town, and will make capacity funding available to support its proposals. The Government will also work with Bicester on helping to meet its infrastructure needs, including through the potential for recoverable government investment, subject to a business case.
  • Garden towns – The Government will provide capacity funding to Basingstoke and North Northants to support their proposals for development on garden town principles.
  • Public sector land housing target – The Government has already sold enough surplus public sector land to build over 100,000 new homes. The Government is committed to releasing land with capacity for up to 150,000 homes between 2015 and 2020. The Government will look to set departmental contributions by the Spending Round.
  • Housing Finance Institute – The Government will work with Keith House and Natalie Elphicke to implement a Housing Finance Institute, as recommended by their review, of the role of local authorities in housing supply, in conjunction with the Local Government Association and businesses.
  • Shared ownership – Following an earlier consultation, the Homes and Communities Agency will amend guidance and model leases to help streamline the sales process for shared ownership properties in outright ownership. The Government will also launch a wider review into shared ownership.
  • Homeless families – The Government will consider options to support long-term investment in private rented accommodation for homeless families.
  • Help to Buy: ISA – The scheme will provide a government bonus to each person who has saved into a Help to Buy: ISA at the point they use their savings to purchase their first home. For every £200 a first time buyer saves, the Government will provide a £50 bonus up to a maximum of £3,000 on £12,000 of savings. Further details are provided in the document “Help to Buy: ISA” which is published alongside the Budget.

Social services

  • Integrating services for people with multiple needs – The Government is exploring options to integrate spending around vulnerable groups of people in order to improve cost effectiveness, including: continuing to join-up services for people with health and social care needs; improving the links between health and employment support for people who are unable to work because of a health condition; improving housing so that people with care needs can stay in their homes longer; supporting individuals struggling with homelessness, addiction and mental health problems; designing a more integrated, multi-agency approach to divert female offenders convicted of petty, non-violent offences from custody where appropriate.
  • Better access to children’s mental health services – The Government will provide over £1bn over the next five years to ensure that by the end of the next Parliament an additional 110,000 children and young people get the support they need.

Business rates

  • Additional Business Rate retention pilots – The Government will pilot schemes in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, and, subject to formal approval of Greater Manchester Combined Authority, in Greater Manchester and East Cheshire from 1 April 2015 to retain 100% of any additional growth in business rates above expected forecasts.
  • Business Rates: long-term review – The Government will conduct a review of Business Rates to report by Budget 2016. The terms of reference for this review were published on 16 March 2015.
  • Business Rates: local newspapers – The Government will consult on whether to introduce a Business Rates relief for local newspapers in England.
  • Local authorities’ use of Business Rates discretionary relief powers – The government will encourage Local Authorities to use their Business Rates discretionary relief powers to support the sharing economy including shared workspaces and makerspaces.

Licensing and Regulatory

  • Alcohol Duty rates – From 23 March 2015, the duty rates on general beer, spirits and lower strength cider will be reduced by 2%. The duty rate on low strength beer will be reduced by 6% and the total duty rate on high strength beer will be reduced by 0.75%. The duty rate on high strength still cider will be reduced by 1.3% and the duty rates on wine below 22% abv and high strength sparkling cider will be frozen.
  • Alcohol fraud – The Government will introduce a registration scheme for alcohol wholesalers that will take effect from October 2015.
  • Tobacco Duty rates – As announced at Budget 2014, duty rates on tobacco products will increase by 2% above RPI. These changes will come into effect from 6 pm on 18 March 2015.
  • Tobacco levy – The Government will continue the consultation on whether to introduce a tobacco levy through informal consultation with stakeholders.
  • Anti-illicit tobacco package – The Government will introduce a package of measures to tackle the illicit tobacco trade, including: establishing a cross-government ministerial group to oversee future evolution of the anti-illicit tobacco strategy; introducing a registration scheme for users and dealers in raw tobacco with a technical consultation on the design and scope of the scheme; an informal targeted consultation with other departments, law enforcement agencies, legitimate business and health groups on sanctions; HMRC will commission academic research to provide evidence to galvanise action on the international stage
  • Further funding for national Trading Standards teams to address e-crime – The Government will increase funding by £0.25 million to tackle rogue online traders and fraudsters.
  • Non-economic regulators – The Government will consider in the next Parliament the creation of a common framework for assessing the performance of non-economic regulators, including collecting and publishing business feedback, with a view to improving their accountability, transparency and responsiveness to business.

Procurement

  • Updating government procurement frameworks to include sharing economy platforms – The Government will “lead by example” by enabling government employees to use sharing economy solutions to book accommodation and transport when travelling on official business where this represents value for money. This will be effective by autumn 2015.

Employment/Councillors’ expenses

  • Progression pay – The Government has agreed proposals with all departments to remove any remaining entitlement to contractual progression pay in the civil service workforce.
  • Tax exemption for councillors’ travel expenses – As announced at Autumn Statement 2014, legislation will be introduced to exempt from Income Tax travel expenses paid to councillors by their local authority. The exemption will be limited to the Approved Mileage Allowance Payment (AMAP) rates where it applies to mileage payments. There will be a corresponding disregard from Class 1 National Insurance contributions. These changes will have effect from 6 April 2015.

Source: Budget 2015.