Memorandum by Southampton City Council
(LGA 16)
INTRODUCTION
1. Southampton City Council is a unitary
authority and since the 29 October 2001 has been operating Executive
Arrangements. The Council has adopted the Cabinet and Leader model.
For 18 months prior to that, the Council operated transitional
Executive Arrangements.
2. The City Council considers that it has
good experience of operating the new arrangements and by and large
they are a success.
3. The City Council's experience is that
the planning framework—in this case the plans constituting
the Policy Framework—are not integrated with the requirements
of operating the new Executive Arrangements. Timeframes are frequently
not sufficient to allow Scrutiny to effectively engage with draft
plans and issues, guidance and pro-formas are issued late reducing
the ability of the Council to pro-actively engage with planning
requirements and there seems to be "patchy" understanding
within various central Government departments as to the impact
that new Executive Arrangements have on local authority decision-making.
4. It appears from anecdotal discussions
that colleagues in other authorities are also experiencing these
difficulties.
THE POLICY
FRAMEWORK
5. At the heart of the new Executive Arrangements
is the Policy Framework. The Policy Framework (and Budget) provide
the foundations for the authority. The Policy Framework is the
subject of this memorandum. It consists of a raft of statutory
plans at the cornerstone of the Council's activities. These include
the Best Value Performance Plan, the Community Strategy, the Crime
and Disorder Reduction Strategy, the Development Plan, the Early
Years and Educational Development Plans, the Local Transport Plan
and the Youth Justice Plan. Regulations govern the content of
the Policy Framework[2].
6. These plans and strategies are recommended
to the Full Council by the Executive for approval.
OVERVIEW AND
SCRUTINY
7. The Overview and Scrutiny function is
perhaps the most challenging aspect of the new arrangements to
operate effectively, being something quite new and unique for
local authorities.
8. Overview and Scrutiny is encouraged to
endorse and embrace the policy formulation aspect and this approach
has been adopted by Southampton City Council who view the engagement
of Overview and Scrutiny with the Policy Framework as fundamental
to the Council's operation.
9. Guidance issued by the Department of
Transport, Local Government and the Regions—New Council
Constitution—Guidance Pack—Volume 1—states at
paragraph 2.29:
"The Executive should adopt an inclusive
approach to preparing the draft Budget, plans and strategies and
to policy development more generally. It should ensure that Councillors
outside the Executive (whether or not they are a member of an
Overview and Scrutiny Committee) have the opportunity to put forward
proposals to them for the Budget or policy development. Overview
and Scrutiny Committees should also play an integral part in policy
development and the Executive should consult these Committees
regularly in the process of preparing the draft Budget and draft
plans and strategies. In the case of the Development Plan, the
Executive should consult all bodies within the local authority
which take Development Control decisions."
10. A fundamental part of the new Arrangements,
in the view of Southampton City Council, is the effective engagement
by Overview and Scrutiny with the Policy Framework. Southampton
City Council considers that this is important. This requires the
provision of appropriate levels of information in a timely manner
as key plans and strategies constituting the Policy Framework
are prepared by the Executive for submission to Full Council.
This process also requires the Executive to have sufficient time
to be able to formulate proposals. In addition, following the
expression of considered views by Overview and Scrutiny, the Executive
also needs time to be able to take those views into account before
reporting their recommendations to Full Council. During this time,
the Council also needs to undertake the usual activities associated
with the production of statutory and, indeed, non-statutory plans
including consultation with stakeholders, citizens, other agencies,
etc.
THE ISSUES
11. Southampton City Council's experience
is that this approach can work well but is prone to difficulties
predominantly caused by timeframes and logistical arrangements
imposed on the Council by central Government in relation to the
production of statutory plans.
12. The Department for Transport, Local
Government and the Regions has recently published (January 2002)
a research document entitled "A Review of Local Authority
Statutory and non-Statutory Service and Policy Planning Requirements".
This is to be welcomed since it acknowledges, inter alia,
the problems associated with timetables for production of plans,
the duplication of the planning process, the prescriptive nature
of the process and the need to rationalise/streamline the framework
generally for making sure the planning burden placed on local
authorities does not detract from their other obligations.
13. It is important to see the operation
of the statutory and non-statutory service and policy planning
process within local authorities within the context of the new
Executive Arrangements. Within that context, it is also important
to take account of the processes that need to operate within a
Council operating Executive Arrangements to make that system effective,
particularly in respect of the Policy Framework.
14. It is Southampton City Council's experience,
both in transitional mode and since the 29 October 2001 that the
ability of the Council—that is to say both Overview and
Scrutiny and the Executive—to engage meaningfully with the
Policy Framework has been inhibited on more than one occasion
as a result of:
(a) guidance for plans arriving late so that
plans need to be prepared to a tight timeframe, not taking account
of the need to engage effectively with scrutiny;
(b) deadlines being changed without taking
account of the impact that this might have;
(c) an inflexible approach to the submission
of plans, ie an unwillingness to acknowledge the timeframes are
unrealistic;
(d) on several occasions, an apparent lack
of knowledge as to what new Executive Arrangements were, and that
decision-making had changed within authorities operating Executive
Arrangements.
15. Southampton City Council's Constitution
largely follows the model Constitution produced by the Department
of Transport, Local Government and the Regions as part of its
statutory/non-statutory guidance. It has Budget and Policy Framework
Rules which facilitate the proper and effective engagement with
Scrutiny that we see as being so important to our local Constitutional
settlement.
16. Authorities operating new Executive
Arrangements have their detailed rules and procedures contained
within their Constitution, and it is acknowledged that much of
the detail lies in the hands of each authority. Southampton City
Council will be reviewing its Constitution robustly in May 2002
and addressing these issues from an internal perspective. But
that does not detract from the fact that many of the issues arise
not from the Council's own internal procedures but from external
factors, particularly the operation of central Government. It
does appear that not all Government departments are aware that
many local authorities are operating new systems of decision-making,
and the implications that that brings for local authorities in
terms of timeliness, etc.
RECOMMENDATIONS
17. Given the Government's review of the
local authority statutory and non-statutory service and policy
planning requirements, Southampton City Council would wish to
recommend that the Government should:
— consider the way in which the Policy
Framework plans are timetabled and organised;
— review the time allowed to local
authorities to formulate Policy Framework plans and strategies;
— ensure that guidance pro-formas and
other material are available considerably in advance of the deadline
for the production of statutory plans; and
— ensure that all Government departments
are familiar with the new Executive Arrangements and the implications
that that may bring.
18. In relation to the last point, the Local
Government Modernisation Team (in DLTR) may well be able to assist
in this process. Southampton City Council would also be willing
to share its experiences in whatever manner is considered appropriate
with any other Government department so as to explain some of
the difficulties in detail that have arisen in relation to specific
plans.
2 Section 13 Local Government Act 2000 permits the
Secretary of State to make regulations so that certain functions
of a local authority may not be the sole responsibility of the
Executive. The Local Authorities (Functions and Responsibilities)
(England) Regulations 2000 include at Schedule 3 a list of plans
and strategies constituting the minimum content of the Policy
Framework. Authorities have discretion to add plans and strategies
to this list. This list must appear in the Constitution. This
minimum statutory list has subsequently been amended by the Local
Authorities (Functions and Responsibilities) (England) (Amendment)
Regulations 2001. Back
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