On Monday December 5, Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown delivered the Pre-budget Report: Opportunity for all. Included within it were plans to increase social housing, involve the voluntary setor in public sector service delivery, and spending of unclaimed bank assets on youth service.
On Monday December 5, Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown delivered the Pre-budget Report: Opportunity for all.
Society
– More social housing planned, with new investment funds to encourage property developers and a planning gain supplement to help finance infrastructure.
– Greater involvement of voluntary sector in public sector service delivery, through local area ‘pathfinders’.
– Additional £53m to extend Youth Opportunity Funds.
– Rod Aldridge, chair of Capita Group to lead follow-up body implementing new young people’s volunteering initiative, recomended by Russell Commission – 35m pledged from seven companies as founding partners including KPMG, Tesco and Sky.
– Requirement for unclaimed bank assets to be spent on youth service and financial education and exclusion, worth “several hundred million pounds”.
Environment
– Carbon dioxide to be stored in depleted North Sea oil fields
– Tax breaks to promote uptake of bio-fuels
– £35m funding for Carbon Trust loans to SMEs for energy saving improvements.
Consumer
– Plans to set up a consumer protection body scrapped, instead local Better Regulation Office set up.
Tax
– Supplementary North Sea charge on energy companies increased to 20% from 10%, to be invested in overcoming fuel poverty.
– A series of measures to protect tax revenues from fraud, evasion and avoidance outlined.
Enterprise and work
– Commission of private sector business leaders to advise on tackling race discrimination in employment.
– Business-led Enterprise Summer Schools Pathfinders, to promote entrepreneurship among young people.
Contact HM Treasury 020 7270 4558
http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk
Editorial Comment
Eight years on and Gordon Brown’s approach continues to be one of cautious tinkering with small schemes that make an incremental difference. This time, plans for what amounts to a tax on windfall gains in development land values (the planning gain supplement, first proposed in Lord Roger’s 1999 Urban Taskforce report) took a step closer to reality with publication of a detailed consultation paper. This is one to watch, as it takes companies even more into funding public infrastructure from private schemes. Big developers like supermarkets and housebuilders will need to become more ‘joined up’ in their thinking about local impact through voluntary contributions and mainstream or mandatory amounts. Long time readers of Briefing will experience a sense of déjà vu over the latest youth volunteering scheme. One of New Labour’s big ideas a decade ago while still in opposition – Millennium Volunteers – is still around, not to mention TimeBank, Experience Corps and other efforts to increase volunteering. Real long-time readers will remember similar efforts by the Thatcher and Major governments to boost voluntary endeavour too. Time will tell whether this will succeed in reaching parts others haven’t. The initial corporate funders are presumably confident and happy anyway to have their own schemes handsomely matched by government. But it’s a long way to go before the £50m target in new private money is achieved. We’ll keep you posted.
Corporate Citizenship Briefing, issue no: 85 – January, 2006