6.Memorandum from the Local Government
Association
The extent of delegation to private and voluntary
organisations in local government
This is very difficult to gauge as outsourcing
is no longer monitored centrally. There are a great deal of contracts
out there across a very wide range of services—any central
database would require a significant resource commitment to maintain.
An estimate from the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister for 2001,
in respect of service contracts (which will not include private
finance initiatives nor, probably, social care commissioning)
was £1.3 billion, with an authority having on average 5+
contracts averaging about £600,000+ each. The total figure
then must be greater than this.
Advice and guidance and the inclusion of
clauses in contracts
The LGA has not issued any specific guidance
in light of recent Court decisions but the Improvement and Development
Agency (IDeA), one of our sister agencies, is currently compiling
a set of detailed practical guidance notes on procurement, which
will include model contract clauses, one of which will be a model
clause relating to the protection of Convention rights in contracts.
In the absence of a detailed survey it is impossible to know to
what extent such clauses are presently included in contractual
arrangements between local authorities and private service providers.
The IDeA guidance is expected to be issued in the summer.
The existing legislative structure
The LGA does not have a definitive view as to
whether the existing legislative structure is sufficient to ensure
adequate protection of Convention rights in relation to contracted
out services. A structured survey of the varying contractual arrangements
entered into by local authorities could give us an indication
as to whether human rights are being protected but without this
information we are unable to form a view as to whether this is
or isn't the case.
The issues raised in the press notice of the
Call for Evidence regarding accountability are similar to the
issues which have to be tackled in respect of the new positive
duty on all public authorities to promote race equality, introduced
by the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000, in relation to contracted
out services. The duty to promote race equality falls on public
authorities but not on the private sector or the voluntary sector,
hence public authorities are accountable for the services provided
on their behalf by private and voluntary sector agencies. The
LGA and the CRE have recently been consulting on draft guidance
for local authorities, "Race Equality and Procurement in
Local Government: A Guide to Meeting the Duty to Promote Race
Equality". The final guidance document should be ready for
launch in June. The JCHR may wish to consider how the principles
in this guidance might be applicable to addressing Convention
rights within contractual arrangements between public authorities
and their service providers. The consultation draft is available
on the CRE website at www.cre.gov.uk.
24 April 2003
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