Appendix: note of roundtable meeting
Attendees:
Members Guests
Mr Clive Betts MP Dr Tim
Brown
Bob Blackman MP Robert Neill
MP
Mrs Mary Glindon MP Liz Peace
John Pugh MP Mayor Jules
Pipe
John Stevenson MP Professor
Tony Travers
Alec Shelbrooke MP Professor
Christine Whitehead
Chris Williamson MP
The following points were made during the meeting.
Methods of working and effectiveness
The Chair welcomed participants to the session, which
began with a discussion of the Committee's methods of working
and an examination of its effectiveness since 2010. It was suggested
that this Select Committee, compared with others, had rightly
focused on the implementation of specific Government policies.
It had included important issues that did not always get coverage
more widely, so councillors, officers and people working in the
fields of housing and infrastructure, for example, could give
their views and inform the Committee's programme and deliberations.
The Committee had rightly stuck to its terms of reference during
inquiries.
One contributor had been impressed by the way select
committees carried out their work. But they noted that, while
considerable effort was put in to producing reports, less happened
as a result of committee reports. It was suggested that this came
back to the committee's relationship with the department it shadowed
and the department's understanding of what the committee was trying
to achieve. There might be scope for some closer working with
a department to identify emerging issues and more effective recommendations.
Participants said that select committees should explore how they
could do more to follow-up their recommendations with departments.
But there had to be a balance as the primary job of the select
committee was to scrutinise and challenge government.
There was a discussion about how the Committee could
measure its success. If the Committee's effectiveness was determined
in terms of achieving change, it had a mixed record, but the Committee
was also an educated and informed commentator and it would be
unrealistic to expect a majority Government to change its policy
most of the time.
It was suggested that success should not be measured
by the number of recommendations that had been implemented, but
its wider impact—for example, by the extent to which a report
generated a debate and the amount of press coverage it received.
It was also suggested that a committee report might not immediately
influence the Government, but that it could help alter the climate
to change the government policy, especially if others cited the
recommendations in their representations to the Government. When
formulating its recommendations, the Committee should consider
whether it wished to make recommendations that were easy to implement,
and therefore were more likely to be accepted, or ones that were
more controversial and might thus be more effective in generating
a wider debate. It was noted that over the current Parliament
the Committee had produced both types of recommendation.
Inquiries
Participants discussed the type of inquiries the
Committee should conduct. It was suggested a mixture of inquiries
was effective, including some which examined emerging policies,
others which looked back at the implementation and impact of changes,
and others which shone a light on areas the Government had not
addressed. In addition, over the current Parliament, select committees
had taken on a much more prominent role in holding individuals
to account. It was for a committee to decide how to strike a balance
between these different approaches. It might also be beneficial
for a committee to conduct inquiries that thought "outside
of the box".
Contributors noted there was inevitably some overlap
with the work of other committees, particularly the Public Accounts
Committee (PAC), which with the increase in the NAO's responsibilities
for local government had looked at the funding of, and reduction
in funding to, local authorities. There was a need to ensure liaison
with the PAC over topics. There was clear benefit in exchanges
and co-ordination between select committees. It was noted that
PAC had recommended that the Committee examine housing benefit
element of universal credit and the impact on rents.
One contributor said they saw the role of select
committees as acting to challenge party lines. It was noted there
had been broad consensus among the Committee which had assisted
both its effective operation and the impact of its recommendations.
A mixture of report types was considered best: short,
sharp reports could have an immediate impact, but there was a
need to mix these with longer, more reflective, detailed work.
It was suggested the Committee might wish to do more
roundtable discussions and engagement with the public both to
inform its programme of work and during inquiries. It was explained
that the Committee did receive many more suggestions of topics
for inquiries than it could accommodate. Often these were from
special interest or campaigns and all were circulated to the Committee
and considered carefully. In was noted that in the next Parliament
there would be a new Petitions Committee, but there might be scope
for select committees to examine petitions which had acquired
significant support.
It was considered important to have several inquiries
in play at the same time. The point was made to the Committee
that this helped generate publicity and secure public attention.
This was increasingly important for the reputation of select committees—they
needed to have the high visibility inquiries.
Evidence and research
Participants turned their attention to the use of
evidence and research. There was some debate amongst participants
about the efficacy and potential role of What Works Centres.
On research more generally, it was stated that the
individual pieces of research commissioned were of a high quality
and had the potential to add objectivity that was not always forthcoming
from witnesses. Participants pointed out that many people wanted
to contribute to select committee inquiries. They might not be
prepared to fund bespoke research but would certainly give their
time and views to committees. On occasion, there might be a need
to supplement this with additional research, for which there would
be a budget in the next Parliament. The Committee, however, should
not lose sight of the fact that academics were heavily incentivised
to do such public policy work and would often provide it for free.
It was suggested that there was much less policy
evaluation by government than previously. But, it was important
to wait a few years allow the full impact of a policy to become
clear. Committees should commission this type of research if no
one else was doing it.
Local government scrutiny
All agreed that the Committee could and should examine
how scrutiny as a system operated across local government in England.
It was entirely within the Committee's remit to question the operation
of the system itself and to examine individual authorities to
illustrate how the system operated.
There was a discussion about local government scrutiny
and whether it was appropriate for the Committee to investigate
the specific activities and failures of local authorities. One
participant considered that there was a role for the Committee
because of the large amount of policy originating in central Government
that was delivered through local government. Council leaders were,
however, ultimately accountable locally for local failures. It
was observed that Government ministers always seem to become involved
when a failure was sufficiently high profile.
Another participant noted a growing consensus that
there should be a greater level of scrutiny of local government
executives, but it was also noted that the nature of scrutiny
was dependent on the culture within an organisation and that any
proposed mechanism of scrutiny could be made ineffective if the
culture within an organisation was defensive and hostile.
A third participant noted that there were so many
potential ways in which the Committee could find itself scrutinising
specific decision making in local government, particularly where
scrutiny of spending was involved. It was suggested that there
was a fine line to be drawn between what the Committee should
scrutinise and what should be left to local scrutiny and that
it could be argued that the line might have been crossed with
the Committee's inquiries into Rotherham and chief officers' remuneration.
On the one hand therefore it was not clear that it was the responsibility
of the Committee to ask individuals to justify specific decisions
they had made at a local level. On the other, given the broad
remit of the DCLG it could be said that the Committee was justified
in examining where there were potential systemic weaknesses across
local government and within sectors of local government.
There was regret at the passing of the Audit Commission.
Inspection regimes such as comprehensive performance assessment
were very useful in their early days but later became all-consuming
and included a number of perverse measures. It was noted that
the abolition of the Audit Commission meant the National Audit
Office looked into value for money issues, and in turn the PAC
looked into issues and questioned individual councillors. But
it was noted that the PAC could not investigate individual authorities.
It was also pointed out that some regulators, such as the Care
Quality Commission, were residual scrutinisers of local authorities
and they were adapting their work due following the abolition
of the Audit Commission. On balance it was considered better for
the CLG Committee to avoid inquiries into individual authorities.
It was considered that sector-led improvement and
peer review led by the Local Government Association should be
part of any future scrutiny mechanism. Participants were less
convinced by sector-owned judgments, which could lack vigour and
challenging questions.
The discussion then turned to the potential role
that the Committee might have in scrutiny of some of the new local
government structures that were emerging with devolution, such
as those taking place in Manchester. The prospect of 'Local Public
Accounts Committees' being set up to scrutinise expenditure had
been aired. It was suggested that there may be some way for the
new committee to link up with these or other new sub-regional
bodies to allow a degree of parliamentary liaison and scrutiny.
Major developments post-May 2015
Finally, contributors looked at what major developments
the committee in the next Parliament might consider. One participant
suggested that a major area of concern would be the impact of
increased funding pressures on local government. It was suggested
that attempts to run existing and new programmes in the current
'siloed' fashion would be unsustainable. The result would be more
use of place based or community budgets and this might result
in the committee moving into areas which would traditionally have
been the concern of the Treasury and other departments. It was
noted that, for example, the employability of those furthest from
labour market touched on drugs, alcohol, mental health, housing
and child care issues. Having all those strands in same place
rather than in Government silos would make more sense. The result
might be the need for more joint inquiries and it was noted that
the Committee had carried out only one formal joint inquiry in
this Parliament, although there had been more informal working
with other Committees—Political and Constitutional Reform,
for example.
Participants considered that the true measure of
the next Government's commitment to greater devolution of powers
would be revealed in the next Parliament. It was felt that, if
the momentum behind initiatives like 'Devo Manc' continued, then
there was a prospect of greater and more far reaching devolution
being taken forward (i.e. beyond elected mayors).
One participant noted that if the 'English Votes
for English Laws' debate continued—and it was likely to—then
there were a number of ways in which the committee could look
into the future governance of England. How, for example, would
the emerging structures of local government fit into a new settlement.
On a local level, there was the potential of services such as
the police being drawn into local combined services structures
for the first time. The committee, alongside others, would undoubtedly
have a legitimate interest in such matters.
The usefulness of the Committee's report on fiscal
devolution was commented on. It was considered by one participant
to be a useful part of a slow-moving narrative that was needed
for such a change to gain momentum. It fed into the work of other
bodies looking at the issue and gave the Committee a good 'locus'
to return to the issue in the next Parliament. Another participant
noted that, even though it was the fiscal recommendations that
gained the most attention, the recommendations on structures and
service delivery should not be lost sight of. Groups such as the
Core Cities saw value in the proposals, as they took the debate
beyond the terms of London and its governance.
It was suggested the successor committee should look
at whether an authority or groups of authorities had the capacity
to take on more responsibilities such as health and social care.
It was thought the joining of health and social care might require
joint inquiries, as there was a risk that separate inquiries might
lead to diverging conclusions that different interest groups could
pick up on. Housing an ageing society, for example, touched on
issues covered by several committees. The absence of joined up
thinking between departments would be replicated if individual
committees looked only at their own departments on a particular
policy. The logistics of joint inquiries would need to be addressed
as it was impractical to have dozens of Members sitting round
a table to discuss these issues.
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