New Deal for Communities Examined

Research based on six of the 39 NDCs that have a total 10 year budget of over £2 billion was published last week by the Department for Communities and Local Government.

Heywood NDC - identified in the Report as Rochdale - was not one of the six, although it was identified as a possible substitute for one of them. The study draws its information from the NDCs of Bradford, Knowsley, Lambeth, Newcastle, Newham and Walsall.

The Report does, however, contain two lists covering some aspects of all 39 from which some interesting comparisons about our own - Heywood - can be drawn.

Only two - Haringey (38%) and Liverpool (31%) - had a lower representation of residents on their Boards than ours (41%) with Leicester having the highest at 80%. Twenty-two of them had Boards with more than half their members as residents of their areas.

Ours is shown as spending the third lowest of its budget on Community Development: its 7% is higher only than Norwich's 4% and Birmingham A's 5%. The highest was Luton's 55% and 8 of the 39 spent more than a quarter of their funding on this import activity.
Heywood's NDC was the second highest spender on Housing & Physical Environment - its 58% was exceeded on by Manchester's 61%, with 25 of the 39 spending less than a quarter of their funding on this aspect of their work.

Heywood NDC is listed as spending only 6% its funding on Education - only Leicester and Oldham were lower with 5% each. Twelve of the 39 committed more than 20% of theirs on this theme.