Examination of Witnesses (Questions 577-579)
RT HON
HAZEL BLEARS
MP
12 JANUARY 2009
Q577 Chair: First of all, welcome, Secretary
of State, and Happy New Year to you. We are very pleased to be
starting off the new year with this final session in our inquiry
on the balance of power between local and central government.
We will try to keep our questions brief and to the point and we
would be very grateful if you would keep your answers equally
brief and to the point. After all, if we think you have not answered
it adequately, we can ask you to do a bit more. I want to start
off by trying to clarify the position of the CLG itself on where
exactly this balance of power should be between central and local
government. I think it would be fair to say that many of the witnesses
we have had thus far have accepted that there has been a shift
but not enough, they would disagree about how far it should go.
Could I ask you, what is the ultimate objective of your policy
on local government reform? Where exactly do you think the balance
should be?
Hazel Blears: First
of all, could I start off by wishing the whole Committee Happy
New Year and, secondly, by saying that I am delighted that the
Committee is doing this inquiry. From looking at the list of witnesses
you have already had in the four or five sessions, you have had
a really broad range of opinions and views and I am very pleased
about that as well. For me this whole process of devolution is
not an academic exercise, it is not an intellectual exercise about
where the right balance of power should be in a constitutional
sense. For me this is about saying `where can we get to a position
whereby local people get the very best services, the very highest
quality, not just local government but partners at local level
working together to deliver something that is practical and tangible.'
Certainly I think the evidence is that, where people have flexibility,
discretion and the ability to make decisions which are relevant
to local people, then those services will be better quality, more
relevant, more accessible and probably be better value for money
as well. For me this journey on the balance between central and
local is very much about what it can do rather than simply an
academic, intellectual exercise in a constitutional framework.
Q578 Chair: In that context then,
the Government has reduced the number of performance indicators
but there are still 200 indicators. Is that still on the way to
even fewer or is that what you regard as a light touch and an
appropriate balance?
Hazel Blears: If you look at the
scale of the reduction from 1,200 to what was initially 198 and
is now 189, then I think that is a significant change. That is
not just fiddling about at the edges of a performance framework,
that is a significant change. I think the indicators have got
to retain sufficient breadth to be able to cover the range of
services that we are looking at and now that we are looking in
a partnership sense, the CAA (Comprehensive Area Assessment) will
be an assessment of how well the partners are working together
across this range of indicators, I do think that you need some
breadth. I would not say to the Committee that I envisage us moving
towards a situation where perhaps we only have a dozen of those
indicators and it may well be that in the current economic circumstances
we need to look at some of the content of those indicators, are
they reflecting the priorities of changed circumstances for example.
I think we have made a big shift. If we can do more and it is
sensible and practical to do that, then of course we will consider
it, but I would not want to give the Committee the sense that
we are moving away from a broad spread of indicators because the
job of local agencies now is really quite complex and it delivers
across a whole range of services. If this is the only place where
the conversation and the interface is taking place between central
government and the locality, it has got to have enough strength
and depth to be able to cover it.
Q579 Chair: If local government and
other agencies in a locality are delivering a good level of service
that their local community is happy with, do you believe they
require the same degree of central control as maybe the less satisfactory
authorities?
Hazel Blears: I think this debate
has been raging for quite a period of time and the direction of
travel has always been that when local government and its partners
improve their performance, then that is the point at which the
centre can step back. I absolutely subscribe to that, where there
is excellent performance, where local authorities and partners
are doing well, then there is less need for central government
to intervene. In fact, I think we have got four out of five local
authorities now that are either excellent or good, which is a
dramatic change from where it was in the early 1990s. As a result
of that, that is why we are seeing the performance framework change;
moving from the 1,200 indicators, the unring-fencing of funds,
the reduction in specific grants from 83 down to 48 and £5.7
billion of unring-fenced funds going in, so you are seeing a lighter
touch. I do think it is important that where you have examples
of poor performance, particularly in sensitive areas as we have
seen around safeguarding of children, just to give a recent example,
then there is the power to have a ladder of intervention from
central government that runs all the way from an initial discussion
to quite significant intervention if that is required. Basically,
this is the deal: if you are doing well, then there will be more
devolution and more freedom; if you are not doing well, then there
will be more intervention.
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