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Session 2006 - 07 Publications on the internet General Committee Debates Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill |
Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill |
The Committee consisted of the following Members:John
Benger, Committee
Clerk
†
attended the
Committee
WitnessesPeter
Facey, Director, Unlock
Democracy
Alexandra
Runswick, Parliamentary and Policy Officer, Unlock
Democracy
Ron
Bailey, Campaigns Director, Unlock
Democracy
Public Bill CommitteeThursday 1 February 2007(Morning)[Mr. Joe Benton in the Chair]Local Government and Public Involvement in Health BillWritten evidence to be reported to the HouseLGPI 04 Unlock
Democracy
9.30
am
The Committee
deliberated in
private.
9.35
am
On
resuming—
The
Chairman:
Good morning. Welcome to the proceedings. Will
the witnesses please introduce themselves to the
Committee?
Peter
Facey:
My name is Peter Facey, and I am the director
of Unlock Democracy, which is a campaign for democratic renewal
established by the New Politics Network and Charter
88.
Ron
Bailey:
I am Ron Bailey, the campaigns director for
Unlock
Democracy.
Alexandra
Runswick:
I am Alex Runswick, the parliamentary and
policy officer for Unlock Democracy.
Q104
Alistair
Burt (North-East Bedfordshire) (Con): Good morning. The
whole tone of your paper is critical of a failure to devolve power,
which you describe as a missed opportunity. You say that, in your
estimation, “the powers of Whitehall are left virtually
untouched”. Will you say more about your assessment of the Bill
as a devolutionary
measure?
Peter
Facey:
The Bill devolves power by giving powers to
parish councils, and in relation to byelaws, and that is to be
welcomed. However, with respect to the powers of Westminster, and in
most policy areas, it reorganises the powers of local government and
gives local government the ability to administer things better, but it
does not actually shift power significantly downwards to local
authorities or
communities.
Ron
Bailey:
There are probably two areas in which the
powers of Whitehall are affected—in relation to byelaws and
parish councils, but that is
all.
Ron
Bailey:
It is very small stuff, unlike another Bill
before Parliament—the Sustainable Communities Bill, which gives
councils the right to drive Whitehall action on local issues. We think
that that is the way forward and it would complement this
Bill.
Q105
Alison
Seabeck (Plymouth, Devonport) (Lab): The Secretary of
State has talked about making a judgment against assessment criteria
when considering whether councils want to change to unitary status, and
has said that more consensus and a broad range of support should be
commanded. On which criteria would you like the judgment to be made?
Have you thought about
that?
Peter
Facey:
We have said that there needs to be agreement
between the local authorities in the relevant local area, but beyond
that we would like to see the involvement of citizens in the process.
If local authorities decide to go ahead despite there being concern in
the community, there should be a process by which the community can
trigger a referendum. That would ultimately ensure a broad degree of
consensus. If things are considered only between local authorities or
between community groups, and not beyond and without the engagement of
ordinary citizens, the process will be very
difficult.
Q106
Alison
Seabeck:
But you are suggesting that in the first instance
the local authorities should take a view.
Peter
Facey:
Yes.
Peter
Facey:
We find that quite strange, given that the
White Paper referred to broad consensus and the involvement of local
authorities and local people. The idea that the Secretary of State
would direct is against the rhetoric of the White Paper. We would like
to see that power either strictly curtailed or removed completely, so
that a change takes place only with the agreement of local authorities
and local people.
Q108
Dr.
Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) (Lab): I am
concerned that the word “consensus” has crept in. As I
understand it, the Bill is about a broad cross-section of support. Is
that different from consensus and, if so,
how?
Peter
Facey:
I do not know what a broad cross-section of
support means. If you are talking about agreement between the actual
local authorities involved, that is one thing but, if you are talking
about a broad section of opinion, that could be anything. I would have
to see a definition. If, in effect, you are going to abolish tiers of
government, ultimately the citizens or voters in those tiers should
have a say. That does not necessarily mean that they have to be offered
a referendum at the beginning, but if there were significant concern,
they should have a way in which to challenge the decision, so that they
can force a referendum on the issue and their voice can be
heard.
At the moment,
the Secretary of State could decide that there was broad agreement and
a local authority district council could be abolished. The citizens in
the community cannot mount a challenge at that point, which is our
concern.
Q109
Tom
Levitt (High Peak) (Lab): The White Paper put the
proposition that, once councils had moved to hold council elections,
they should not be able to return to a third, a third, a third when
that is used. Do you support that
proposition?
Peter
Facey:
One of our big criticisms of the whole Bill is
that the empowerment process is always one way, and this is an example
of that. We can move in one direction, but once we go in that
direction, we cannot go back. The same thing applies to elected mayors
and executives. If we are to give local communities choice, they will
have to have the ability to go backwards or change direction. In this
case, simply saying to local authorities that they can go from
elections by thirds to all-out elections but that they can never go
back because that would not work for them, seems not particularly
empowering of local communities and local
councils.
Q110
Tom
Levitt:
And which method—all-out elections or a
third, a third, a third—do you, as an organisation,
recommend?
Peter
Facey:
We would probably recommend all-out elections,
because they would give local people a greater opportunity to have a
complete say over their local authority. Because we support moving to a
proportional system as they have in Scotland, we recognise that that
cannot be done under the system of elections by thirds. We would argue
that all-out elections are a positive thing, but that does not
necessarily mean that local communities have to take our view. We feel
that the decision should be with local communities, not necessarily
with
ourselves.
Q111
Tom
Levitt:
Is it not the case that over a four-year period
more voters engage by voting under a third, third, third system than an
all-out system and that a third, third, third system allows councils to
evolve rather than to have a catastrophic change every four
years?
Peter
Facey:
But there was also evidence that it would
become more difficult for political parties to find candidates. There
are also situations in which the turnout for annual elections could be
less than for an election that affects the whole nature of a council.
There are strong arguments in favour of all-out elections, but our view
is that that should be a choice for local people and the local
authority—not for us, even though we would recommend that it was
probably a better form of
governance.
Q112
Alistair
Burt:
To pursue a structural point, I understand
your point about it being a one-way process. But there has to be
certainty in government. How do you resolve the conflict between
wanting people to be constantly involved in having a say, yet if they
take decisions to have one-structure elections or one-structure
executives and then want to change their mind, the ramifications and
costs of that are huge. Surely we cannot be that beholden on trends and
shifts in opinion if we are to give certainty in how government is
delivered.
Peter
Facey:
There is certainly an argument for saying
that, if you change to a new form of governance, it should have to be
in place for a set period before it can be changed again. The triggers
should be high, but if you adopt an elected mayor and have three or
four elections under that mayor and the local people within the town or
community find that that does not suit them in the end, why can they
not raise a petition to change the process? At the moment, a citizen
cannot raise a petition to get rid of an elected mayor, as is the case
in Stoke where there is an elected
mayor.
Peter
Facey:
As far as I am aware, you cannot raise a
petition to abolish a mayor once you have one. If you are saying that
that is the case, I shall bow to the Minister who is shaking his head
but, as far as I am aware, I do not know of anybody who has had the
opportunity to do
that.
Peter
Facey:
Yes.
Q114
Andrew
Stunell (Hazel Grove) (LD): I want to link my question
back to what Mr. Facey has just said about citizen
involvement. One model is the indirectly elected leader. In many cases,
there will be councils that, even under the existing voting system, do
not have overall majorities. What view does the organisation take on
political balance in the slates created by indirectly elected leaders?
Perhaps we could hear Unlock Democracy’s views on a proportional
voting system, which would clearly make that a much more common
outcome.
Peter
Facey:
We would certainly argue that if
you are going to have a cabinet, it should reflect the broad views
within the community—the majority view. In my own local
authority, no party has overall control. It has a cabinet made up of
Conservatives and independents. If you are going to put forward a
slate, that slate must reflect the views of the community.
There is a strong argument in
local government to give people a choice on electoral system. If we are
going to give them the choice on governance structure—an elected
executive, an elected mayor, or a leader and cabinet—we should
at the same time offer them the opportunity to change the electoral
system. The argument that first past the post produces strong outcomes
does not necessarily apply when there is an elected mayor, because the
argument is, “You already have your governance, and therefore
the councillors’ role is to represent the views of the local
community.” The experiment in Scotland, where they will have
proportional elections for local government starting in May, show that
that is practical. Hopefully, it will give local citizens more choice.
We support the Bill introduced by David Chaytor to give local
communities a choice of electoral system as well as a choice of
governance structures.
Peter
Facey:
Yes, certainly. If you can give
communities a choice on mayors or executives it is very difficult to
argue that you cannot do it on electoral systems. It is a logical
extension of the Government’s own
position.
Ron
Bailey:
May I add a point of
philosophy? If we believe that in a democracy, the people are
sovereign—I presume that we all believe that—it must
follow that they must be able to choose how they cede that sovereignty
to their
governments.
Q116
Mr.
Neil Turner (Wigan) (Lab): To followup your point
about councils representing the communities, how would a councillor in
Birmingham, for example, under a proportional representation system
represent a community when in fact he represents 1 million
people?
Peter
Facey:
In lots of local authorities, we
already have multi-member wards. We are not talking about changing
that, but about having a proportional system within those multi-member
wards. That system has been adopted in Scotland, where they are
electing between three and five councillors in a ward. We think that
that can work perfectly well. The experience of having multi-member
councillors has shown that it can happen. We are not necessarily
talking, in lots of cases, of increasing the size of wards. We are
talking about having people in a ward, and hopefully wards, who broadly
reflect communities—I recognise that that is difficult in some
areas—and giving voters the opportunity to have a range of views
represented, rather than simply having one party representing
them.
Alexandra
Runswick:
Also, if we are moving towards the
community call for action model of councillors being champions of
particular community interests, it is important that people have a
range of representatives that they can choose from and go to, so it
does not just become one councillor championing one particular section
of the community while others are
unrepresented.
Q117
Mr.
Turner:
Is there any evidence of that—councillors
choosing which people to represent rather than representing the whole
ward?
Alexandra
Runswick:
If we move towards a single-member ward
system and we empower councillors to take on that champion role, there
is a risk that the more active groups within a community will have
their say better heard and will get what they want from the council
delivered more effectively. However, there is already a problem of
different groups being less represented in local government and
participating less in local politics. One of our concerns, if we were
to move toward having single-member wards and empowering individual
councillors, is that some groups might feel excluded from the
process.
Q118
Robert
Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con): I am trying to
follow the logic of how empowering someone who has a democratic mandate
and who those groups can kick out if they do not like what that person
is doing will marginalise
them?
Peter
Facey:
It is a simple fact. I recognise that anyone
who argues with MPs about the difference between single-member and
multi-member wards is probably on to a loser, because MPs are the
greatest defenders of
single-member constituencies, but the reality is that if 40 per cent. of
your community disagree—it may be a minority, but it is a
significant minority—they may not get representation. We are
saying that there is an argument, particularly when empowering
councillors under the community call for action, for having a range of
opinions so that contrary views with a significant community following
are heard.
There are
plenty of examples of MPs writing back to their constituents to say,
“I disagree with you.” We are not saying that that is
wrong, but we are saying that there should be a range of opinion so
that those who have views and are part of a significant minority should
be represented too. If you simply go down to a single-member ward
situation and empower councillors under the community call for action,
there is a danger that some views may not be heard unless there are
other ways to achieve that. I recognise that people who support the
idea of single-member seats as the perfect form of government will not
necessarily agree with
me.
Q119
Robert
Neill:
I just wonder: is it single-member, as opposed to
multi-member, wards or empowerment that is the
problem?
Peter
Facey:
Empowerment is not a problem. For me, the
problem is making sure that there are a range of views so that people
can have their views heard. If you have only one channel for that, it
reduces their opportunity to have their views
heard.
Q120
Andrew
Stunell:
Unlock Democracy’s briefing refers to the
councillor in a single-member ward turning into a gatekeeper rather
than a champion. Would you explain that
point?
Peter
Facey:
We welcome the community call for action. We
think that it is a positive tool for local councillors, particularly
those who do not come from majority groups—those from small
parties as well as back-benchers and independents—but if that is
the only route for communities to get their views heard, there could be
a situation in which a campaign or view within a community does not get
heard because the councillor decides not to support it and there is no
process for it. We are looking for the extension of participatory tools
and elements of direct democracy to give communities in such
circumstances ways to make their voices heard within the local
authority, not just through the representative system—as a
complement to representative democracy, not a replacement for
it.
Q121
Tom
Levitt:
Lots of councils, of course, already have
multi-member wards. They use the third, third, third election system.
Surely councillors must be accountable to communities. Those
communities often do not extend to more than a three-member ward, for
example.
Peter
Facey:
Which is why we are not sitting here and
saying that you have to go down a particular route. Our whole message
is that there should be local choice. I live in a rural village, and
there is an argument that in terms of our community, extending it to a
multi-member ward might not make sense, but I am not saying that there
should be single-member wards in all circumstances. The idea of moving
toward uniformly
single-member wards is what I am criticising. If that is going to
happen, and even where single-member wards already exist, there should
be other ways that community views can be fed into the process and
extra tools for empowering citizens. That is what we are talking about.
There are dangers. We are not saying that they are always bad in all
cases, but citizens need other tools to make their views
heard.
The community
call for action is very good, but we would like to see an opportunity
for other tools. The Government have introduced things such as the
ability to petition for mayors and now for executives—the first
time that power has existed. That is great, but we would like to see
that kind of idea extended more broadly, so that communities can use
those tools and, even where their councillor does not agree with them,
make a significant view be heard. There need to thresholds and
safeguards, but there should be safety valves in the system to allow a
community to exercise power outside of an
election.
Q122
Alistair
Burt:
However views are brought to the council, a system
has to be devised to make decisions. Do you regret the fact that the
Bill does not give the opportunity of having the committee structure as
one of the options for
governance?
Peter
Facey:
Yes. I do not think that central Government
need to set the exact parameters of how people are governed although
they may need to set guidelines. The committee system can work. I do
not think that it is necessarily the best system, but that choice
should be made by local communities, not by a lobby group or
Westminster.
Q123
Alistair
Burt:
Bearing in mind that Lord Hattersley suggested that
the Government dropped the need for referendums because, “Too
many referendums produce the wrong result”, why do you think
that referendum arrangements have been omitted from the Bill? Do you
think that referendum arrangements should be in the
Bill?
Peter
Facey:
I think that one of the problems with the way
in which referendums have been used has been that we have in some ways
had government asking people questions. That is the wrong way to use
the tool. Referendums should be there so that people can express their
views to national or local government. I do not have a problem with the
idea of local authorities being able to say that they want to move to
one of the new governance structures and not have a referendum, but
there should be a mechanism by which citizens in a community who
disagree can put a brake on the process, have time to raise a
petition—perhaps to a lower threshold than the one we
have—and then hold a referendum. That way, you do not force
referendums where they are not needed, because there may be community
agreement, but if a council decides to move to a new structure and
there is a significant opinion within a local community against it, the
community should have the opportunity to trigger a referendum, in the
same way that local communities have the ability to force a mayor to
trigger a referendum on the decision. That system works in places such
as Germany, where communities can delay and block things by organising
petitions. That is what we are talking
about.
Q124
Alistair
Burt:
Can we take this as an example of what you call a
missed opportunity? The language of the Bill is devolving, but in key
areas where power could be transferred, the chance has been missed, and
some other measure ought to be there?
Peter
Facey:
Yes.
Ron
Bailey:
We would welcome amendments tabled to bring
about discussion, or a decision, on the introduction of a general power
for citizens’ initiative. We may as well tell the
Committee—to its joy or otherwise—that we are going to be
starting a campaign to achieve that in the next few
months.
Peter
Facey:
It is a power at local level that exists in a
number of European countries and in parts of the United States. In
effect, it means that citizens can raise a petition and, if that gets
to certain level, they can trigger a debate in a local authority and
force it to discuss an issue and ultimately, after that, trigger a
referendum. Different countries do it differently, but such a power
exists in Sweden, Holland, parts of Germany, and parts of the United
States. It takes some of the principles that are already there, as the
Government have done, but extends them so that people can force their
local representatives to at least discuss a controversial issue that
they otherwise may not be willing to
discuss.
Q126
Robert
Neill:
I notice that in your submission you broadly
welcome the extra scope for parishes, but you warn of the danger of
them being seen as “tokenistic talking shops.” I read
somewhere that last year, only 10 per cent. of parish seats were
contested. What can be done about that? Can Government do more to guard
against tokenism? How do we tackle the problem? How do we make parishes
meaningful and get a proper level of participation?
Alexandra
Runswick:
One thing you have to do with any level of
devolution is give the institution some power to effect change. The
Bill goes some way to doing that, but parish councils have been used
very differently in different areas. There are certainly models of
really excellent parish councils that involve communities and actually
provide a vision for what that community wants to achieve, to change
and to develop. However, they can also be quite small-C conservative
and be used as a tool to block change. Therefore, it is very much about
giving parish councils the level of support that they need, making sure
that it is possible for new people to come into the process, and not
being too prescriptive about exactly what form a parish council has to
take. Obviously in the Bill, there are different options; it can be
called a parish council or a village council.
Lots of areas have done that
kind of thing already in that they have genuinely devolved power from a
council level either to neighbourhoods or to parishes. In terms of
engagement, you have to make sure that the parish
council can actually effect change and inspire a
vision for that community and that it has the tools and training to go
out into that community and convince people to take part. Although I
welcome parish councils, I do not have this idea that suddenly there
will be a million Londoners just sitting at home of a night thinking
“I wish I had a parish council meeting to go to”. I am
sure that people will be encouraged to go to meetings and to get
involved in their communities but it is not simply a question of
setting up the
structure.
Q127
Robert
Neill:
You mention London and perhaps I should declare an
interest in having been a deputy chairman of the Commission on London
Governance. We had some concerns about parishes in London. The one that
I want to raise now is this: how, in the context of somewhere like
London—a big urban area where parishes might be the same as or
very similar to the ward— how does having a parish in those
circumstances fit with empowering the ward councillor or councillors as
local champions? Is there not a risk of confusion about who the driver
is: the ward councillor or the
parish?
Peter
Facey:
There are different places and parts of
London. It is a collection of small villages and communities. There may
be areas where parishes can actually work. They may even be part of a
ward and not the whole of it. I used to live in Croydon where parts of
its outskirts are effectively small villages which may actually fit a
parish perfectly because they are a type of community where that would
work. There are also parts of London where councils have already
devolved power to neighbourhood committees and to individual
councillors. In those circumstances, I would not want to say to them,
“Actually, you have to go for a parish.” Therefore, it
can work in London, but I welcome the fact that the Government, in this
case, are saying that the power is there, but not telling people that
they have to do it.
There are ways other than
parishes in which we can have the devolution of power within a local
authority. What we welcome is the idea that power should be pushed
down. That may be to groups of councillors in a particular
area—there are models which various councils across the
political spectrum have used—or it may be to individual parishes
and town councils. There is some diversity there but the basic
principle for us is power should be pushed downwards. Whether that is
to a directly elected parish or to elected councillors operating in a
neighbourhood forum does not matter that much to
us.
Alexandra
Runswick:
On your broader point regarding clarity on
who has the responsibility and power to do what, I do think there needs
to be more clarity, not just between parish and individual councillors
but between parish, local government and central Government, about
exactly where power lies and what powers can be exercised at which
level. Not only but particularly in multi-tier governance structures it
can often be very confusing for individual citizens to know who is
responsible for delivering which service. More generally, we would
argue that there needs to be a clarification of powers, we would argue
in a constitution, between central and local
government.
Q128
Robert
Neill:
In the London context, do you not see the risk of
actual confusion and conflict
between the two because you are imposing something that has not happened
in London for a very long time as opposed to in rural areas where
parishes have grown organically, if you like, and are well
rooted?
Peter
Facey:
I am not particularly concerned about the
possibility of confusion. I think there are parts of London that would
like to have parish councils and giving Londoners the choice to have
them, either by petitioning for them or for local authorities to use
them, is a positive change. There is not a uniform London any more than
there is a uniform anywhere else. London is a very, very diverse city
with lots of communities. Although parishes may work for some areas,
they may not work for
others.
Ron
Bailey:
I do not think it is correct to say that
there have never been parishes in London. Prior to the London
government Act of 1964, I believe, there were parishes in parts of
rural Bromley, like Biggin Hill or
Keston.
Robert
Neill:
None of my constituents have ever told me that, I
shall go down the public library and find
out.
Ron
Bailey:
I think there were—and in the other
parts that were taken into London under that
Act.
Q129
Dr.
Blackman-Woods:
I want to return to your earlier point
about bringing new people into parishes. Do you agree with the
provisions in the Bill that allow parish councils to co-opt local
people on to parish councils who have a specific position in the
community?
Alexandra
Runswick:
I certainly think it is worth bringing in
as much experience as possible. As some people have said, one of the
big problems with parish councils is that most seats are uncompetitive
and it is difficult to fill the places. Regardless of whether election
or co-option is used, I would certainly welcome people in the community
who have specific skills being able to contribute to the parish council
process. We might need to think about exactly how that is done and
whether they are brought in for particular consultations that affect
their area of expertise, or co-opted for a full term of office, but
yes, I would certainly support their experience being
used.
Q130
Dr.
Blackman-Woods:
Are there dangers in terms of reducing the
accountability of parishes, specifically if they are given more powers?
If they have too many co-optees, they may just be seen as a talking
shop.
Peter
Facey:
You would certainly need safeguards. If you
are going to move to an elected council or give more power to an
elected council, to then dilute it by having a large number of people
who are appointed seems contrary to the whole philosophy. There perhaps
need to be questions about the number that you can appoint and whether
they have voting rights or simply speaking rights. We need to preserve
the democratic ethos of a parish or community council and, at the same
time, recognise that they do not always have the expertise and that
there may be arguments for bringing in expertise. I think the basic
premise should be that the democratic system should be where the
representation
comes through and that, yes, you can bring in expertise, but there need
to be safeguards around
that.
Q131
Dr.
Blackman-Woods:
But could it provide a mechanism to bring
in the voices that you were talking about earlier, who may not get
representation any other
way?
Peter
Facey:
Yes.
Q132
Tom
Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD): One of the
possible unintended consequences of unlocking democracy with parish
councils might be that certain groups are elected who one might not
want to get elected. Do you perceive that as being a potential
problem?
Peter
Facey:
Lots of people get elected who I do not
necessarily personally like. If you believe in democracy, you have
ultimately to say, “It is about the will of the local
community”. As long as the system is fair and the rules are
clear, I am not going to pre-judge the views of local electors and say
that their choices are wrong. There is always a possibility of people
being elected whom I find abhorrent. Already on local councils are
representatives of the British National party. I support their right to
stand, but abhor everything that they stand for. I recognise that as a
problem and I also recognise that the problem may get greater, the
smaller the unit involved. But, ultimately, if you are a democratic
reformer, you have to stand by the democratic process, even though
sometimes you may not like the people who are elected.
Our organisation is based
fundamentally on the idea of trusting people. Therefore, I have to do
no other than simply trust the local electors in an area to know what
is best for them and hope that we can put a fair electoral system in
place to ensure that the views of that community are fairly
represented.
Q133
Alistair
Burt:
On local area agreements, you welcome the move
towards strategic working between the different agencies at local
level, but you point out that local authorities are still what you call
“first among equals” in this model. You also say that
local authority agreements are set with the agreement of the main
delivery target, which, of course, comes from the Government. Have I
characterised your position correctly? Can you think of a different
model for producing local targets and locally desired outcomes for
communities?
Ron
Bailey:
I would like to comment on the local area
agreements. We welcome the Government’s proposals to extend and
enhance them, together with what I believe is the Government’s
stated intention to enhance the budgets tenfold. The Minister has said
that whereas the LAA budgets are currently £500 million, they
will increase to £5 billion. That is to be welcomed, but it is
still only a small proportion of the national money spent in local
areas.
An example is
Kent, where the current LAA budget is £30 million. If that was
increased by tenfold—to £300 million—it would be a
good thing, but the total public spending in Kent from national
agencies rather
than from local authorities is £5 billion. So even extending the
amount to £300 million leaves that figure as a small proportion
of the £5 billion. In our view, a better model might be to
require the Secretary of State to divide up the £5 billion
between what is genuinely local and genuinely national, and to give the
bodies that administer the LAA and the local authorities the power to
spend and to re-allocate all the local money assigned to that area.
Spending in Kent might then go up from £300 million towards the
£5 billion. Some spending would still be national, but a large
percentage would be genuinely local and would be spent by the local
authorities. As you may know, the Sustainable Communities Bill does
just that: it allocates local spending for local authorities.
Let me give a silly example of
national spending. The Highways Agency is going to spend £7,500
on a puffin crossing in Ashford—a small amount of money, but
there are dozens if not hundreds of such instances. Our view is that it
is absurd for an unelected national body such as the Highways Agency to
take that decision. The decision should be made by Ashford borough
council and the money should be within its control.
The better model is not just to
increase LAA spending but to say that all local spending should go
through LAAs. The local authorities who participate in an LAA should
not be just “first among equals”, but the driving
force—because they are elected.
If LAAs are really going to be
strengthened so that the bodies administering them can run the show as
the locally elected bodies, those bodies should have some say on the
kind of complementary policies that the Government should be
introducing in their areas, and on the national policies that affect
their areas, so that, with some caveats, they drive the relevant
Whitehall policies. Giving LAAs and local authorities those powers
would result in genuine
devolution.
The
Minister, Mr. Woolas, said in the House a week or so ago
that it is often money rather than legislation that drives power these
days. Giving LAAs and local authorities control of all the money for
their area and the right to influence Whitehall policy for that area
would result in genuine devolution both of central power and money. The
Sustainable Communities Bill does exactly that, and could complement
the Bill
well.
Q134
Mr.
Woolas:
Let us consider the example of Kent in relation to
the dividing line. Benefits are the single biggest budget item in
public expenditure in Kent. Do you think that the benefits
system—pension credit, incapacity benefit, social
security—should be controlled at county
level?
Ron
Bailey:
That may be something that the Government
will say should be dealt with nationally. Within the benefits budget,
however, there may be elements that have a local aspect, such as on the
back-to-work allocation, though the level of benefit may be a national
matter.
Peter
Facey:
We are not arguing that everything needs to be
put down to the local level; we are saying that the current balance is
wrong. The Government agree that certain things are being directed from
central Government or central Government agencies that can be better
decided locally, because the local council and the local community have
more expertise in relation to
their own problems, and are therefore better able to work out what the
priorities should be. We are not saying that everything has to be
shifted downwards, but that the balance is wrong and we would like to
see a better definition of
it.
It may be that the
Minister and central Government will ring-fence certain things as
national more than I would like, but even if the Government were
extremely conservative about what was national, we think that there
would be significant benefits if some things were definitely local. The
balance would
shift.
Mr.
Bailey:
Minister, I will just read you the briefing from
Kent on that very point. It says, “While benefit payments may be
nationally set”—that is valid—“why
isn’t back-to-work spending by the DWP a wholly local
decision?”
Q135
Mr.
David Burrowes (Enfield, Southgate) (Con): You describe
the provision on byelaws as one of the most significant devolutions in
the Bill, but could it go
further?
Peter
Facey:
In terms of byelaws, it is a good step, but it
could go further in giving local authorities more powers to decide
things for their areas. I am not sure that there is necessarily more
that can be done on byelaws, but in terms of adapting and having
policies for local communities, there is certainly a lot more that can
be
done.
Q136
Mr.
Burrowes:
I understand that, under the Bill, enforcement
of byelaws through fixed penalty notices is reserved to those approved
by the Secretary of State. More powers for byelaws are given to local
authorities, but they cannot enforce them without the Secretary of
State saying
so.
Peter
Facey:
That is one of our general points. Central
Government need effectively to give power to local communities and
local authorities and then step back. Either local authorities have the
power to give fixed penalties, and the Secretary of State agrees, or
they do not. There is an idea that the powers are given. One of my pet
hates is the phrase, “Good local authorities can have extra
power.” It is not for central Government to work out what a good
local authority is; it is for the voters of that community to work that
out.
We talked
about having a clear separation between the powers of local authorities
and those of central Government to make it as clear as possible to
voters what the responsibilities of their local representatives are,
the people whom they need to hold to account on those issues and what
the responsibilities are central Government are. A situation in which
you are constantly told, “You can have this bit of power here,
but only if you do it in this way” or “I will say whether
you can have it or not” is not genuine devolution of power. It
is an improvement, but it puts us into something of an
“Oliver” situation, in which local authorities are always
saying, “Please, sir, can I have some more?” I do not
think that that is necessarily good for local government and local
democracy in Britain.
The
Chairman:
I will allow one just more supplementary,
because it is important that we get to part
11.
Q137
Mr.
Burrowes:
Presumably, you favour more local decision
making on complaints. Are you concerned, though, that there is a risk
that public confidence might be undermined by inconsistent and partial
decision making? If so, how could that be
countered?
Peter
Facey:
At the moment, we have a very peculiar
situation. The codes that cover you as parliamentarians are in some
ways more relaxed than those covering local councillors. It would be
better if we had a code of conduct for elected local and national
representatives in the United Kingdom that was enforced, rather than a
situation in which local councillors sometimes have more stringent
codes and standards than parliamentarians. I find that very strange. We
would welcome a move to a uniform set of standards. Maybe the standards
that you are willing to work under should be applied. Maybe central
Government should accept for local government only those standards that
they are willing to accept
themselves.
Q138
Mr.
Burrowes:
But in terms of the application of those uniform
standards, are you in favour of them being devolved locally? They might
end up being applied
differently.
Peter
Facey:
I think that there is an argument for a
watchdog body. As much as possible should be done locally, but there
might be circumstances in which there needs to be somebody like an
ombudsman or a process outside the local authority. You could debate
whether the standards need to be completely uniform across the country,
but I think there is an argument for having a uniform code of
standards.
There is a
case in my own ward in which a local councillor has been taken to the
Standards Board. It has taken two years for that case to be discussed
and it is only now coming out. Although the councillor is saying,
“That happened two years ago, why are you bringing it up
now?”, people in the community are only now finding out about
the case, and that is wrong. If we are going to say that councillors
need to be accountable to their local electorates and if there is going
to be an outside investigation, it needs to be a lot faster so that
local people have the information themselves and local councillors do
not sometimes find themselves being suspended, pulled out of things or
having their reputations sullied because of a process that does not
come to a conclusion very
quickly.
Q139
Lynda
Waltho (Stourbridge) (Lab): I would like to discuss local
involvement networks. On Second Reading, the Secretary of State
expressed her hope that involvement on them might extend beyond an
average membership of about eight to hundreds if not
thousands. Will LINKs be any more successful than patient forums in
attracting involvement and are there any additional measures that might
be necessary to do
that?
Alexandra
Runswick:
It depends very much on how they are
administered. One of the big problems with patient forums was that they
did not have much in the way of support. One of the strengths of
community health councils was that they had very dedicated staff who
had both strong local experience and experience of the NHS. However,
because the support for patient forums was outsourced, there were
examples of forums, such as that for south London, being administered
in Birmingham.
If you bring
in members of the public to give their individual experience of the
NHS, they need a lot of support in understanding how the different
systems work. With the move from CHCs towards patient forums—and
possibly also with LINKs, although I am not as clear on that—we
have moved from a representative system that involves voluntary sector
organisations to using individual patients and their
experience.
There are
merits to both systems. However, if you are going to use individuals,
they need a lot more support in fighting their corner, learning how
they can work the system and what rights they have. That might well
bring more people in, and health is certainly one of those
issues—as I am sure that you will all be more than well
aware—that gets people involved and agitated.
Therefore, I
do not think there is going to be a shortage of people wanting to come
forward to change their local NHS. What is more likely to be a problem
is enormous enthusiasm to begin with—which is what happened with
the commission—but people do not then know how to channel that
and become disillusioned because they believe that they have signed up
for something and are not clear what their role
is.
Q140
Lynda
Waltho:
How would you see this support manifesting itself?
What sort of support would you be asking
for?
Alexandra
Runswick:
There needs to be an administrative
support. There needs to be a staff team—whether for a patient
forum, LINKs or wherever there is direct patient
involvement—that has experience of the NHS, knows the local
community and is able to help patient forums, LINKs and the individual
patient representatives in LINKs to have their voices heard.
Whether it is eight or 8,000
people in a community, they all have different experiences of their
local NHS services and want to have a say. Therefore, you need to have
the skills to know who you are supposed to be talking to, what power
you have to make your views heard, what to do if you do not feel that
something has resolved itself and is not acceptable, and what you can
do next.
Involving
people is very important but there is nothing worse than partially
involving people as they get disillusioned and walk away from the
entire process. Therefore, you need to make sure that there is clarity
about their role and that they know how to exercise it and have the
support, in the form of a dedicated staff team, to be able to fulfil
it.
Peter
Facey:
Experience in
other—
The
Chairman:
I am sorry, but we have come to the end of our
time. On behalf of the Committee, I thank the witnesses for coming this
morning. Your views are much
appreciated.
It
being twenty-five minutes past Ten
o’clock
The Chairman
adjourned the
Committee without Question put,
pursuant
to the Standing
Order.
Adjourned
till this day at Two
o’clock.
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