Appendix 2: Correspondence with Ministers
Local Authorities (Alcohol Disorder Zones) Regulations
2008
Letter to the Chairman from Mr Vernon Coaker MP,
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Home Office
1. Thank you for your letter of 23 January about
the Local Authorities (Alcohol Disorder Zones) Regulations. Your
letter outlines a number of concerns about: Home Office controls
on the quality of Statutory Instruments generally; the quality
of the Explanatory Memorandum in this case; the delay in laying
the guidance; the analysis of consultees' views; and the robustness
of the projected benefits of Alcohol Disorder Zones.
2. I appreciate that your concerns about the
quality of the Explanatory Memorandum and related documents for
these regulations arise from concerns about the Merits Committee's
consequent ability to fulfil its functions and want to be clear
that I take them extremely seriously.
3. Further, I am aware that this is not the first
time that the Committee has had cause to write to the Department
about the quality of the explanatory memoranda that it produces.
In response to these concerns the Department has taken steps to
improve its processes and procedures with the objective of improving
its performance in this area. David Seymour, the Legal Adviser
to the Home Office, wrote to Andrew Mackersie on 4 December 2007,
setting out the steps that the Home Office are taking to improve
the quality of secondary legislation produced by the Department
and I have attached the letter for your consideration. These steps
include continued training on statutory instruments and more internal
guidance which are in addition to the long standing quality control
measures the Department has in place for the drafting of the instruments
themselves. I welcome these measures and I expect to see an improvement
as a result. I can only apologise for the fact that despite these
endeavours the Explanatory Memorandum for these Regulations was
not of the quality the Committee is rightly entitled to expect.
4. I will now examine your particular concerns
in turn.
5. I apologise to the Committee for the original
regulations having been withdrawn after they were laid. This arose
because the normal procedures for checking statutory instruments
were not followed. This of course should not have happened. Since
then my officials have been working with the legal adviser to
the JCSI to ensure that the regulations are legally sound.
6. In respect of the Explanatory Memorandum not
properly explaining the purpose of the regulations or the context
of the policy, I appreciate that this was not acceptable and I
can assure you that the Department is working to improve the quality
of all explanatory memoranda.
7. Please be assured that my officials are continuing
to improve the ADZ guidance and will do so in consultation with
all interested parties. On the 8 January the guidance was out
of date in a number of respects as it did not reflect very recent
changes to the regulations. The guidance was corrected within
a few days, and I apologise for any inconvenience this delay has
caused.
8. Whilst the views of consultees were considered,
I accept that the analysis of responses in the Explanatory Memorandum
lacked detail and did not fully demonstrate how the views of particular
stakeholders were integrated into the policy development process.
My officials are continuing to work with stakeholders, including
the LGA, to improve the ADZ guidance.
10. I apologise in particular that the figures
from the Manchester City Centre Safe scheme, contained in the
Regulatory Impact Assessment (RIA), contained an accidental error.
My officials corrected the error as soon as it was detected, but
I am sorry for the difficulty this will have caused the Committee.
11. In summary, I share your concerns about the
matters that have arisen in this case. I am aware that they arise
in the context of previous concerns that the Committee have had
about the Department's explanatory memoranda over the last year
or so. I can assure the Committee that I greatly value its work.
The Department is committed to continuing to improve its internal
processes so that the Committee is provided with explanatory memoranda
of sufficient quality that it can properly do its job. I can only
apologise again for the fact this did not happen in this case.
31 January 2008
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