Our place
The coalition agreement published on 20 May 2010 outlined plans to promote devolution and give communities greater powers to shape local developments and local services. A range of ‘community rights’ were subsequently enshrined in law by the Localism Act which was given Royal Assent on 15 November 2011.
The ‘Our Place’ initiative helps residents work with councillors, service providers, businesses and voluntary and community organisations to identify the issues that matter most to them. These Our Place partnerships then develop plans to tackle the issues and can influence how local budgets are spent, redesigning and potentially commissioning, managing or delivering services locally.
The Neighbourhood Community Budgets (NCB) programme piloted this approach in 2012/13. Locality in partnership with the Community Development Foundation (CDF) and delivery partners have been commissioned to run Our Place 2015/16 programme.
Support is provided to communities and public service organisations to develop an operational plan to take control of issues in their area, for example; setting up after-school activities for children, improving quality home care, working with businesses to offer more local apprenticeships and so on.
In March 2016, the government published an interactive map showing the location of Our Place projects.
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