29 November 2010

Sheffield City Council area has been named as one of nine pilot areas taking part in the Your Local Budget programme. This is an initiative by the Big Society Network and the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts (NESTA) in which local councils give control of some council spending to charities, community groups and local residents.

The projects will trial a ways of involving citizens in budget decisions and range from working with services users to trial how pooled personalised care budgets can be used to provide day centre activities, to examining how parish councils can use their local precept - income raised from parishioners - to support the provision of local services that are at risk from budget cuts.

The projects will be overseen by the Big Society Network, a not-for-profit organisation which was co-founded by Lord Nat Wei, the government's big society adviser.

More details from the Big Society Network here.