CORNWALL Council has launched a £608,000 Local Devolution Fund to enable community network panels to assist devolution and partnership working within their local areas.

The fund’s primary purpose is to help support the council’s devolution programme, through which assets and services are being devolved to local communities, via local councils or community groups, so that they can be maintained for the future and help the council to achieve its budget savings.

The community network panels, which consist of local Cornwall Councillors and town and parish councils, can use the fund to progress or complete the handover of devolution projects in their areas, by contributing to the practical costs of these projects, to the costs of altering buildings so they are in the best condition for how local communities plan to use them, towards purchasing equipment or training staff for organisations taking over a service and towards projects and activities that support partnership working in their local areas.

The funding has been made available by the council’s cabinet, using a small proportion of the under-spend on the 2014/15 council budget.

Cornwall’s community network panels are central to the council’s local partnership working arrangements. The 19 community network areas covering Cornwall are based around groupings of parishes and electoral divisions. Each community network area has a panel — a local partnership forum comprising the Cornwall councillors and representatives from town and parish councils within the area.

Their role includes discussing and progressing local issues and working together to build relationships between local partners and strengthen community cohesion.

The fund has been allocated according to the number of Cornwall councillors on each community network panel. The councillors in each area will make recommendations on how the funding should be spent, in consultation with their local panel. The panels do not have the power to make funding decisions themselves, as they are not formal council committees, so the recommendations will be considered by the council’s cabinet member for localism, Jeremy Rowe.

Mr Rowe said: ’I am pleased to announce the Local Devolution Fund. The community network panels play an important role in bringing local partners together and I know they will make the most of this opportunity to consider at a local level how this funding might best be used to support devolution and partnership working.

’Across Cornwall, our most significant current devolution priority is in relation to libraries and One Stop Shops, but there are a number of other exciting devolution projects underway locally, relating to a wide range of services and assets, including open spaces, recreational facilities and community buildings.’