Examination of Witnesses (Questions 40-53)
RT HON
HAZEL BLEARS
MP
10 JULY 2007
Q40 Anne Main: On the regions, you
have just mentioned a few very positive attributes where you could
see a minister championing a positive event. How about a negative
event in as much as if the region and people within the region
are unhappy about some of the things the Government wishes the
region to deliver via regional governance, would the Minister
for the Regions be an advocate for the unhappiness as much as
for the positives?
Hazel Blears: If you are going
to have governance which actually has the broad support of the
country then it is important that government hears the bad as
well as the good. Not just hears it but also, where it can, responds
to it and tries to meet the concerns that people have got. I think
one of the reasons for people's disaffection sometimes from the
political process is that they think that somehow politics is
conducted in this place completely distant from their concerns
and the realities of their day-to-day lives, and therefore the
more you can do to have people on the ground—whether it
is local councillors, whether it is Members of Parliament in their
constituencies, whether it is these new regional MPs or whether
it is ministers—actually listening and feeding things through
to government the better.
Q41 Anne Main: Can I give you a "for
instance"? If a region is unhappy say for example with the
housing allocation that we were talking about previously where
a target has been set by the Government and it does not wish to
sign off its regional plan because it is unhappy that it will
not get the infrastructure, would that minister be an advocate
for the region or would he be an advocate for the Government within
the region in trying to get the Government's wish through? Where
would the priorities lie?
Hazel Blears: Clearly, as Mr Olner
said, these are very new appointments and I think it would be
important to work through the kind of contribution that the regional
ministers can make. I certainly do not see them as agents of central
government being sent out in order to impose central government
policy on the regions. That is not my idea of a modern democratic
constitution. Equally, I think that they will have a responsibility
to perhaps discuss, explain, broker, negotiate. The way in which
democracy works is when people come together. They do not necessarily
get 100 per cent of what they wanted but what they do want a sense
of is that people are engaged and prepared to listen and sometimes
prepared to change what they do as a result of the representations
that are made. I think this level of contribution can actually
help in that progress.
Q42 Chair: Will they be advocating
on behalf of the regional MPs or the regional assembly or some
other regional body?
Hazel Blears: I think that is
part of the discussion that needs to be had. They have been in
place I think for probably a week to ten days and those are important
issues that do need to be explored, both with the regional ministers
and indeed the departments as a whole.
Chair: Can we move on to the issues about
communities and back to you, Anne.
Q43 Anne Main: You have made various
observations about communities describing them as the equivalent
of "motherhood and apple pie", and saying there is a
vague sense of people being nice to each other and not a governing
narrative. Would you like to give us a firmer vision of what you
think a community is and what your sustainable governing narrative
is for these communities?
Hazel Blears: I think communities
come in all shapes, sizes, backgrounds: a complete diversity,
and also I do not think communities are simply geographic. There
was a leader in the Guardian last week that said that because
I was born in Salford, raised in Salford, educated in Salford
and lived in Salford then inevitably that I would look at communities
through a very narrow prism of geographic place rather than in
other perhaps more modern ways.
Q44 Anne Main: What are they apart
from being anything and everything, which you have just said?
Hazel Blears: What I wanted to
say was that I do have a strong sense of place and geography in
terms of communities. I do think it is important where people
live—who are their neighbours, who are the people in close
proximity to them—but I of course recognise that there are
also different communities of interest, different communities
now who are linked in ways that are not simply about where they
live but perhaps about where they work, what their interests are,
and that the implications of technology and the way in which people
communicate in different ways these days has had a huge impact
on determining what a community is. My Department has to be able
to respond to that myriad of different shapes and sizes of communities.
What I think it is about is where people have their day-to-day
experiences has a real impact on what they are able to achieve
for themselves and their families. If you live in a community
that is not safe, for example, where you do not feel comfortable
going out in the evening if you are an older person or a young
family, then you are not going to be able to take advantage of
the many, many things that are on offer in order to improve your
education, to improve your economic prospects, and therefore for
me what communities are about are not just simply an end in themselves
but making places that are strong, that have a good environment,
as you have pointed out, where housing is affordable and of a
decent standard, all of these are platforms for people to succeed
in and for me I want to build the kind of communities where every
single person has the chance to get on in their life and do well.
Q45 Anne Main: So that does sound
like motherhood and apple pie. Perhaps you would like to talk
us through the community kitty. How would it work?
Hazel Blears: I do not accept
that it is motherhood and apple pie to want to create the kind
of place where people want to live and work and bring up their
families. I think it is ambitious, I think it is probably bordering
on idealistic—and I do not mind being idealistic—at
the same time I am pretty realistic as well about what can be
achieved. In terms of the community kitty this has a more jargon
kind of name which is "participatory budgeting", and
basically what this is is an attempt to bring people together
in a local area or from a community interest and for them to have
a role in determining what would be the priorities for their area
or how that money should be spent. It has taken place in about
a dozen areas so far and what has been interesting is that when
you moderate the debate properly you set out the range of options
that people have got, you facilitate debate, you do not simply
have a tick box vote, then you actually get a pretty considered
view from people about what the priorities are. They understand
that there is not a bottomless pit, they understand they have
to have trade-offs, and they understand they have to make some
tough decisions. Going through that process has resulted in people
making better decisions, obtaining better value for money and
signing up to the results that have come through, and when it
has been properly facilitated by local government, not bypassing
local government, then in fact those local authorities have felt
strengthened as well. I will just give you one example, I think
it was in Bradford where they had a group of young people come
together to decide what some money should be spent on. People
were worried that these young people would decide to spend it
all on skateboard parks and Internet cafés and on all the
things that were important to them, and in fact what they did
after a discussion was decide to vote for quite a bit of the money
to go to services for older people, so again there was a community
cohesion benefit in terms of inter-generational work coming out
of that process. I think it is a genuine concern and one that
I am alive to. I do not want the usual people who have the loudest
voices to have the most say. But again I do not accept that it
is not possible to reach people who do not normally have a say.
What you will find is that if you ask people to come and have
a discussion about what is happening in the local park, you will
probably get far more of them to come than if you say, "Would
you like to have a general discussion about local government?"
and therefore making it real to people. I think that is how you
reach the people who would not normally take part in this kind
of deliberative activity.
Q46 Chair: Can we just explore that
example you raised. Was it in Bradford?
Hazel Blears: I think it was in
Bradford.
Q47 Chair: What exactly were the
young people being asked to do? Were they being asked to look
at a slab of the local authority's money and being asked how they
wanted it allocated or were they being asked about spending it
specifically on young people?
Hazel Blears: I am not sure of
the detail to that extent but my understanding is that it is different
in different areas. For example in Sunderland I think they were
looking at their New Deal for Communities budget, so that was
a large amount of money and then they were having a community
discussion about how that should be spent. In other areas it is
a smaller pot and some of it might have been specifically for
youth, some of it might have been more general for the community
as a whole. I do not at the moment have the detail on that discussion.
It was just interesting I was told by my officials that what came
out of their initial discussion was that they also wanted to see
things that would help the older people in the community, and
for me that was very heartening that you did not have a group
of people who focused solely on their own needs, and I think that
indicates that you do not always get the loudest voices making
the decisions.
Q48 David Wright: I will ask you
the same question I asked you under another heading. How do you
get the worst-performing authorities then to do this kind of thing
because unless you have some kind of organised approach or some
kind of national commitment you will get very good local authorities
doing this, you will get some pioneers in this area, but you will
also get slow starters and you will get people who do not start
at all. How are you going to get people to start?
Hazel Blears: There are two ways
I want to think about that in this agenda really. The first one
is working very much with local government themselves through
the LGA, making sure that where there are these good things going
on that the LGA works to try and spread that good practice. We
have got some mechanisms now that we used not to have through
the peer improvement process, that again is relatively new but
very welcome in local government, and then there were some of
the harder performance management framework routes that we might
look at in the longer term. We have now got local area agreements
which have covered virtually every area in the country and I want
to look very closely at those local area agreements to see whether
or not we can factor in some of the community involvement issues.
I think at the moment many of them are a conduit for national
priorities being delivered at a local level and I want to see
if we can make those local area agreements more about what the
local area wants to achieve as well, which will mean central government
maybe taking a different attitude, and so I think there are some
leaders in the system through that LAA process and we will be
able to get a broader spread of this kind of activity going on.
However, I think you have got to do it in two ways. You cannot
simply say it is top-down, you are all going to do this whether
you like it or not, because then what you get is people going
through the motions of doing it and on this agenda if you want
it to work people have to see the benefits of it happening and
they have to be quite committed themselves because some of it
is quite difficult managing those relationships, so you have got
to do a bit of both.
Q49 Mr Betts: I think it would be
a good way of encouraging more widespread understanding of examples
of good practice in this regard, which I think is something we
can perhaps encourage. Can I pursue two areas on devolution. It
is relatively easy for the Secretary of State to give commitments
on devolution. We have had the issue recently on waste which this
Committee is about to report on where the Government position
was basically that it is up to local authorities how they decide
to collect their waste within a general legal framework, but there
are other areas which are a bit outside your remit where local
authorities may still have a role, and I just wonder how far you
are prepared to weigh in and challenge other government departments
on behalf of local authorities? The first area I want to explore
is the issue of health where we have a Health Service which is
still pretty centralised. If the Government wants to push responsibilities
down to a lower level of the Health Service we still then have
got the problem of accountability. How do you see local authorities
playing a greater role in that issue of accountability and what
happens in the Health Service at local level?
Hazel Blears: I think this is
a big issue for the whole Government, that if we are really serious
about moving from a top-down target culture from the centre into
more local accountability, then we are seeing a big shift from
a vertical relationship with all of our delivery partners into
more of a horizontal accountability and this is big government
business I think. Obviously in CLG's field we are moving from
1,000 indicators to 200 indicators and 35 targets. What is the
nature of those targets, how do we free up local space and all
of that is a dialogue that is going on, but if this is going to
be a general shift across government not just in local government
but in health and in policing—and I think in policing they
are moving from a huge number of targets into probably just 14,
so again as you push down you have got to have more accountability
at local level because this is public money that is being spent
and therefore there ought to be that. It is not really about me
challenging other government departments. I would prefer to put
it as how do we all work together as the departments that actually
make a difference to people's lives out there, because health,
policing and local government are the key components of that,
and how do we work on better integration of the accountability
mechanisms. When I was the Police Minister I did quite a bit of
work around how did we get a relationship between local government
and the BCU—Basic Command Units—the superintendent
level of policing. We had the crime and disorder reduction partnerships.
We then brought in safer neighbourhood teams, which had to report
back to local people to set some of the local priorities, and
there were some models around whether or not we might have a bigger
input from local authority into some of that territory. The same
is true with the Health Service. Increasingly relationships are
closer. They are starting to pool budgets. You have got section
31 partnership arrangements between health and local government
now and I think the ground is fertile, shall we say, for exploring
this at this moment in time. I think there is a great opportunity,
so it is not a matter of me going to other government departments
and challenging them to let go. What we have got to create across
government is a sense that this is the direction we want to move
and to explore some models for greater accountability and integration
at local level.
Q50 Mr Betts: You may feel there
is some point you might want to challenge on this, even if you
cannot quite say that this morning, and that is the issue of public
transport at local level. It is one of the issues that frustrates
councillors and it frustrates MPs in terms of the services we
simply cannot deliver to people outside London. Bus services are
an awful lot worse than they were 30 years ago (because of deregulation
some of us would argue) but we have a new Transport Bill now with
powers for the bringing in of quality contracts, different sorts
of powers that can be exercised at a local level. At the same
time the Government is talking about devolution to local councils
and giving more responsibilities and powers to them. We have a
Transport Bill which effectively says it is all right, the passenger
transport authorities can begin the process of moving towards
quality contracts, but having decided they want to move down that
route a traffic commissioner can come in and completely countermand
their initiative. That is not really a very good example, is it,
in a new draft Bill of the Government's commitment to devolution
and support for local authorities?
Hazel Blears: I am loath to comment
on the detail of a draft Bill which is the responsibility of one
of my colleagues.
Q51 Mr Betts: Exactly. I was asking
you to challenge it.
Hazel Blears: I appreciate the
point that is being made. Just from my own personal experience
in Greater Manchester, we have had huge problems with our bus
services, with gridlock in central Manchester because everybody
wants to do the profitable routes and nobody wants to do the other
routes, so I entirely understand and appreciate how salient this
is with the public and getting bus services in the right place
at the right time is key. Again, it comes back to what kind of
community we want to build because transport is a key component
of that. I have no doubt that I will be in discussions with my
colleague in terms of getting that balance right. I suppose again
it is fair to say that we all want to move towards devolution
but there will be some tensions in how far we can do that and
at the same time maintain economic competitiveness, maintain the
infrastructure of the region; and we are going to have a sub-national
review fairly soon so a stronger voice for local authorities but
at the same time ensuring that we can deliver on the things that
are necessary. That is always going to be the subject of negotiation
and debate. It is not all one or all the other. Sometimes people
will feel that the balance perhaps is in the wrong place and that
is why we have to have that kind of challenge around that.
Q52 Mr Betts: I am just looking for
some sort of reassurance that you recognise that there is a general
Government commitment to devolution and that may sometimes go
beyond the boundaries of your Department and you have a general
responsibility to try and ensure that the Government as a whole
is keeping to that agenda.
Hazel Blears: There are two areas.
Obviously the Prime Minister's statement on the constitution last
week gave us a very strong steer that what we want to see, he
called for a "reinvention" of politics in terms of the
settlement, and I think there is a very strong steer in terms
of devolution in that statement. And the second area on which
I do think I have got a wider responsibility than just our departmental
business is the engagement agenda, about how we make these words
actually be real on the ground for people so they do feel that
they are able to have an input and challenge into the whole range
of things that the Government is doing, and this whole business
about people being disaffected from the process I do see as a
personal responsibility to try and ensure that we take steps—and
across government as well.
Q53 Chair: Thank you very much indeed,
Minister. That is a promising start to what we hope will be a
constructive dialogue between us. Thank you.
Hazel Blears: I am very grateful,
thank you very much.
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