Local investment planning

By working with local authorities as they develop their vision for their locality and communities, we aim to support, enable and facilitate delivery of improvements for people and places.

From the launch of the HCA in December 2008, we focused on implementing the Single Conversation as a local place-based business model. The model was designed to realise the benefits of creating a single housing and regeneration agency and achieve more efficient investment delivery in places in line with locally determined priorities. We have now initiated the process with every local authority in England. An independent evaluation has shown how the business model is realising the benefits of establishing the HCA and ensuring that in future investment is focused on local priorities. Now that the process is underway in all parts of the country our focus is shifting to the development and implementation of the Local Investment Plans that have come out of the Single Conversations with councils.

In response to the findings of the interim evaluation, the policy priorities of the coalition Government and the need to ensure that investment plans have as rigorous an approach as possible to setting priorities, we have made some changes to our main business process.

  • Firstly, as the Single Conversation has completed its aim of engaging local authorities, and we have moved into a more detailed planning stage, our future joint work will be known as local investment planning.
  • Secondly, we will work with those local authorities who wish to continue with local investment planning to complete all the Local Investment Plans currently in progress by March 2011. In future we will adopt a voluntary approach to local investment planning with councils. This will mean that we will continue this approach with all local authorities that find it a useful way to develop and deliver their local investment priorities. The HCA remains committed to seeing local priorities as the basis for our business approach and the way that our investment and enabling roles are implemented.
  • Finally, we are paring back the Guidance that has supported implementation of the process and introducing some core elements for local investment plans, which will help local authorities and the HCA maximise the impact of available resources.


Below are links to a number of documents that set out how we are taking forward this approach with local authorities:

 

If you have any queries about the revised approach, please contact that HCA office for your area in the first instance.

Last updated: 21 July 2010

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