The Centre for Cities’ submission to the 2010 spending review recommends:
Regional Growth Fund
- The two-year £1bn Regional Growth Fund is extended to 2014-15 and increased to £2bn.
- The Regional Growth Fund should initially focus on supporting jobs growth in buoyant cities then, as growth takes hold, the Fund should focus on supporting struggling city economies
- In struggling city economies, the Regional Growth Fund should be used to improve the public realm and tackle urban blight, and also on infrastructure and skills programmes that help link residents to jobs in more buoyant places.
Transport
- Infrastructure spend will be significantly reduced, but the Centre would like to see an increased share of this budget spent on transport.
- The Government set out plans to return infrastructure investment to at least 2 percent of GDP at the next Spending Review (2015-2016 onwards) – closer in line with the EU 15 Countries.
- Crossrail should go ahead, recognising its importance to the UK economy
- Small scale ‘pinch point’ investments are prioritised, alongside maintaining the existing network to combat congestion.
Place-based budgeting
- The Government removes most of the remaining grant ringfencing and pursues a place based budgets approach. £3.2 billion worth of local authority funding remains ringfenced.
Savings related to business and sector specific support
- Reducing spending on direct “generic” business support policies and scaled back sector-specific initiatives
