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The purpose of the amendment at this stage is to probe why they are not there. They are obviously partner authorities, and they will obviously continue to be consulted in the preparation of economic assessments. No doubt, the Minister will shortly tell us why they are not there.
Amendment 164B adds the Health and Safety Executive. Again, it is not on the list, and we probe and wonder why not. Amendment 165ZA removes the right of the Secretary of State to remove by order any person—person is defined in the Bill—he or she may wish to. Again, I return to the point made earlier by my noble friend Lady Hamwee. It may just possibly be that one day we shall have a Secretary of State who thinks that she or he would like to run every local authority in the country. That is an inconceivable thought to some of us, but it is not necessarily going to be the same Secretary of State who we have known and loved in the past. It will not necessarily for ever be the same benign Government, so well disposed towards local government, as we have now. The Government are determined to legislate for the worst councils; it is fair enough that we should consider the possibility of having the worst Governments at some time in the future.
It is as likely as having bad councils that we will one day have bad Governments. The last of my amendments in the group, Amendment 165ZB, speaks for itself. I beg to move.
Lord Hanningfield: I support those amendments. We have some amendments in this group, too. I endorse everything that the noble Lord, Lord Tope, said. To have the list of people who one should consult is ridiculous. It should be left to local circumstances,
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My two amendments have been suggested by the Association of Colleges, and I agree with its point. The Learning and Skills Council is mentioned in two parts of the legislation. However, legislation has just been given a Second Reading in the other place that abolishes the Learning and Skills Council and sets up a skills funding agency, if I have it right, and a young people’s learning agency. There is already something in the Bill that is going to be abolished in the coming months, with two new bodies set up in its place. That highlights the ridiculous nature of listing all these various bodies as the Government have done.
Lord Patel of Bradford: Clause 64 sets out—
Lord Greaves: Members of the Committee will excuse me for the fact that I was dreaming of better things than being stuck in this Committee on what, in the north of England anyway, is a nice winter day. I apologise.
I shall speak to Amendment 162AZA, which is grouped. It goes back to what I have been trying to put forward throughout the Bill, and no doubt will continue to do so. You cannot seriously set up systems to involve and consult—to deal with the real world on the ground, however you do it—without considering and including local strategic partnerships.
I do not understand the Government’s desire for local strategic partnerships to play an important role in local governance and economic matters without appearing in legislation. It is quite extraordinary and denies the world as it is. As I always say as a caveat, I would be happy if local strategic partnerships disappeared and their functions were simply put with local authorities, to do all the consultation, working groups and involvement with other bodies that LSPs do when they are working well. But they exist and are not going to disappear. We therefore ought to accept in legislation that they are just as important as all the other bodies that are listed.
In many cases, LSPs are certainly more important at a local level than the Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission for England, important though that is for particular historic buildings and monuments. They are often a fundamental part of how a local authority tackles local economic issues. They tackle social, environmental, transport and educational issues and all sorts of others, but their role of trying to produce, and provide training for, local jobs, investing in local business and improving local transport infrastructure and so on is at their heart. All of that is crucial to the local economy. The LSPs currently often commission the economic assessments that the Government are talking about and want councils to be responsible for. LSPs are currently doing this on behalf of the council and their other partners. To leave them out of legislation is crazy.
Finally, I remind the Government that LSPs exist not only for the principal local authorities at the top tier or unitary level, but also for district councils. In
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Lord Patel of Bradford: Clause 64 sets out a list of partner authorities in respect of the local authority economic assessment duty. Clause 63 requires principal local authorities to consult those partner authorities listed in Clause 64 and other such persons, if any, they consider appropriate in carrying out local economic assessments. Members of the Committee have notified us of their intention to oppose Clause 64 standing part of the Bill. Amendment 162A would take away the requirement for principal local authorities to consult partner authorities listed in Clause 64. Amendment 162ZA is in a similar vein.
We have included Clause 64 in the Bill as there are partners that local authorities should be required to consult in carrying out their assessments. The listed authorities are already working closely with local authorities and co-operating with them in agreeing targets aimed at improving local economic outcomes. It is important that responsible local authorities engage with these partners in identifying the economic conditions of the area.
The list of partner authorities broadly follows the list of partner authorities set out in Part 5 of the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007 for the purpose of agreeing local area agreements and which responsible authorities must consult when developing their sustainable community strategies. We have, however, restricted the list of named partners set out in Clause 64 to those bodies that have a significant economic locus—that is to say, local economic development and regeneration activity is likely to impact on their core business. It is therefore shorter than the list of named partners for LAAs. The likelihood is that local authorities will want to engage most, if not all, of their partners in preparing their economic assessments. However, we do not believe that there should be a statutory duty to consult all of them. This strikes a balance between ensuring that their major economic partners have an opportunity to comment on economic assessments and limiting the burdens placed on local authorities. It also strikes a balance between prescription and local flexibility.
We have taken this approach because local economic assessments are expected to form part of the evidence-base for the sustainable community strategy and for LAA negotiations. Any evidence revealed in local economic assessments will have implications for an area’s long-term vision set out in the sustainable community strategy, and its delivery through the targets set out in the LAA, in respect of which partner authorities have a duty to co-operate. In view of this, we believe it is important that these partner authorities should have an opportunity to comment on a local economic assessment.
Beyond the list of partners set out in this clause, local authorities are free to choose who they consult. The Bill requires responsible authorities to consult other such persons, if any, whom they consider to be appropriate. If local authorities believe that there is a strong case for consulting other bodies or partnerships,
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Under Amendment 162AZA, the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, would like us to go further and apply the duty to consult to all local strategic partnerships. He would have us replace the requirement to consult named partner authorities with a requirement to consult the local strategic partnerships for the area. As we have said before, we do not think that it is appropriate to frame such duties by reference to local strategic partnerships due to their lack of a separate legal identity. This could lead to uncertainty and inconsistency. As I have already said, we, of course, recognise the reality of LSPs, and the central role they play, which is why we have drawn our list of partners from those set out in Part 5 of the 2007 Act. We would expect consultation with partner authorities in relation to local economic assessments to build on existing dialogues established through the LSP framework. But, although most partners are likely to have an interest in any conclusions reached in any economic assessment, we do not believe that there should be a duty to consult all of them. As I said before, we have sought to strike a balance between ensuring that local authorities consult their major economic partners and avoiding any unnecessary burdens on local authorities and between prescription and local flexibility.
Amendments 165, 164A, 164B and 162AA propose changes to the list of partner authorities for the local economic assessment duty. We have restricted the partner status to existing LAA partners with a strong economic locus, as I have already said. Our aim has been to keep the list of partner authorities as short as possible in order to reduce the potential burden on local authorities and potential consultees.
Amendment 165 would remove the Learning and Skills Council from the list of partners for the local economic assessment duty and replace it with the managing or governing body of a further education institution in the principal local authority’s area. Amendment 198 would have a similar effect in relation to MAAs with duties. The LSC is already a partner in local area agreements and the existing non-statutory multi-area agreements, and is working with local partners across the country to identify the education and skills needs of an area and to ensure that sufficient high-quality opportunities are available to meet those needs. We believe, therefore, that the LSC should remain on the list.
Lord Hanningfield: The LSC is about to be abolished.
Lord Patel of Bradford: The noble Lord rightly points out that it is our intention to replace the LSC. Under our proposals, responsibility for 16 to 19 funding will transfer to local authorities, supported by a new
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Amendment 164A would add police authorities, crime and disorder reduction partnerships, local probation boards and youth offending teams to the list, while Amendment 164B would add the Health and Safety Executive to the list. We are not disputing that these bodies would have an interest in any local economic assessment. But, as I said earlier, we do not believe that there should be a duty on local authorities to consult all partners. Local authorities should be given the scope to decide for themselves which other bodies they should consult in preparing their assessments beyond the core list in Clause 64. We should give local authorities some local flexibility to decide which bodies to consult, depending on local circumstances.
Amendment 162AA would require principal local authorities to consult parish councils in carrying out their local economic assessments. We accept that parish councils have an important role to play in supporting their local communities and are able to provide a particularly local perspective. We certainly believe that there is value in principal local authorities consulting parishes, and this a point we stress in our policy paper. Indeed, our statutory guidance, Creating Strong, Safe and Prosperous Communities, suggests that local authorities should consider consulting parish councils in preparing their sustainable community strategy and LAA. However, given the large number of parishes—about 8,500 across England—we do not believe there should be a duty to consult them. We believe that this would place an unnecessary burden on local authorities and potentially on parish councils.
Amendment 165ZB would require partner authorities to provide a principal local authority all requested information and to co-operate fully with the principal local authority. We have tried to avoid making the arrangements too burdensome for both partner authorities and local authorities. It is true to say that the same partners have a duty to co-operate in determining LAA targets. However, we should draw a distinction between what is required from partner authorities in relation to LAAs and what is required of them in relation to economic assessments. With LAAs, partners need to make hard decisions affecting the social, environmental and economic well-being of an area, and this may have implications for funding programmes. The same does not apply to local economic assessments. The economic assessment is not an end in itself, but
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We are also concerned that an open-ended requirement for partner authorities to provide all requested information to principal authorities would place an unnecessary burden on partner authorities, particularly those whose activities are not confined to one principal authority’s area. There may also be issues of confidentiality or privacy that should be taken account of, and a duty to share all requested information may compromise those. A partner authority should be allowed to determine which data it should provide rather than face a requirement to share all data.
Finally, Amendment 165ZA would remove the Secretary of State’s power to remove a body from the list of partner authorities. We believe it is important to retain this provision in case the functions of a body change or it is abolished. I should also stress that such a revision would not be used lightly and is subject to consultation and parliamentary scrutiny.
I hope that these assurances address Members’ concerns and that they will understand why we are rejecting these amendments. I also ask that Clause 64 shall stand part of the Bill.
Lord Greaves: I have one brief comment to make about LSPs. The Government need to sort out their status in a sensible way sooner or later. I do not suggest that they should be made into fully fledged alternative local authorities, which we fear is a course the Government may take with the economic prosperity boards later in the Bill. They have a purely spectral status, where they exist but they do not exist, and they float around in the clouds but do not have any real status in law—indeed, the Minister said that they have no legal identity. Yet, these are the bodies that the Government have used as a conduit of preference for vast amounts of investment in the past few years. How does money come for this or that project, whether economic, social or whatever? It comes via the LSP. It is extraordinary that on the one hand the Government give them such a huge status but, on the other, deny their existence. Some kind of status that can be defined in legislation needs to be sorted out for them, if they are to continue to exist. One sometimes thinks that the Government are happy with them at the moment because they can abolish them overnight on the whim of the Secretary of State.
I want to pick up the Minister’s point about the onerous burden in having to consult too many people. He referred to the fact that there are thousands of parish councils. Every principal local authority knows which its parish councils are. It almost certainly has an e-mail distribution list for those councils because it will be communicating with them. If not, it ought to have such a list. Communicating and consulting—sending things out—is simply a matter of sending things once to an e-mail distribution list and perhaps having stuff on your website that people can consult. The idea that there is a huge onerous burden in writing to 25 or 200 parish councils, however many there are in a particular local authority, is a myth.
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Lord Tope: Following what my noble friend said about local strategic partners, if I remember rightly, when we considered Chapter 2, the Minister accepted that there was a need to review the accountability mechanisms for partnerships, including local strategic partnerships. Again, we are on the same issue. As my noble friend said, they exist but they do not exist. Was his wonderful phrase, “a conduit of preference”? Whether we like it or not, they are increasingly important in the local scene in their role and funding, yet because they are not recognised as a legal entity, they do not exist, so they are an obvious omission from the Bill.
I thank the Minister for his reply. He made the case for what we are saying. If they are prescriptive, as the Government wish to be, albeit with a light touch, inevitably and logically they start down a road that gets them into more and more difficulty. I wrote down a few phrases that the Minister used. The Government want the list to be as short as possible. So do we; we want it to be extremely short. Later, the Minister said that local authorities should have the scope to decide for themselves. If that were the case, it would be an extremely short list; maybe that is the answer.
It may be a view that the police authority, the CDRP and the other bodies are not listed because they are not major economic players. It puzzles me that a fire and rescue authority is considered a major economic player in the Bill, but a police authority is not. I do not understand that logic. The Minister says, rightly, that a local authority can and certainly will consult the police authority, the CDRP and so on. Indeed, they will be represented on the local strategic partnership, which is probably the issue on which most of this debate will take place, except that it does not exist in law.
I am sure that we will return to this issue. I hope that before we do so the Government will consider further the difficulties they are getting into, which are similar to those on Chapter 2. In the mean time, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendments 162A to 164 not moved.
Clause 64 : Partner authorities
Amendments 164A to 165ZB not moved.
165ZC: After Clause 64, insert the following new Clause—
“Sustainable Communities Act 2007
(1) Section 6 of the Sustainable Communities Act 2007 (c. 23) (local spending reports) is amended as follows.
(2) At the end of subsection (9) insert “and shall make all arrangements within the period of 24 months beginning on that date”.”
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Baroness Hamwee: Amendment 165ZC would insert a new clause that would amend the Sustainable Communities Act, albeit only very little. It is there as a basis for questioning what is happening with that legislation. When it was passed, an awful lot of people seemed to put their faith in it. They now feel that the Government may be dragging their feet.
Section 6(9) of the Act provides that:
“The Secretary of State must make the first arrangements under this section within the period of 18 months beginning with the day on which this Act is passed”.
That was 23 October 2007, so we are coming up to the end of the 18 months this spring. Reading the Act, I realised that I was unclear whether the first arrangements were the arrangements for the first authorities, the first arrangements for all authorities, or quite what. It is appropriate to ask, first, how the Government see that admirably short legislation fitting with the Bill, because they must have much ground in common, and, secondly, what progress is being made.
I had understood that the Government were intending to make the first arrangements last autumn, well ahead of the April 2009 deadline, and that local authorities have until 31 July to make proposals via the Local Government Association, which is the selector under the Bill. The directors’ letter to local authorities, which supplements the Secretary of State’s and which was on the website this morning, said that the Government cannot be precise about how quickly decisions will be made, so I am using this opportunity to ask, importantly, how the two pieces of legislation fit together and for a brief progress report. I beg to move.
Lord Hanningfield: I support the noble Baroness, because I think that we all hoped for a lot from the Sustainable Communities Act. It had all-party support, and I hoped that it would offer local government opportunities to do things rather differently or to think of new things. It would have been particularly appropriate to use it in this difficult time of recession. Like the noble Baroness, I would like the Minister to clarify exactly where we are with that legislation and with the Bill.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Communities and Local Government (Baroness Andrews): I am very happy to do that and to answer both questions asked by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, because it gives me an opportunity to update the Committee in general about the Bill.
Shorter legislation is not necessarily easier to implement. I shall exemplify this by explaining why we have had to take our time over the process that was generated by the Act. As the noble Baroness says, a Secretary of State is required under Section 6 of the Act to make the first arrangements for the production of local spending reports before 23 April 2009. She asked how this fits in with the Bill. I thought about this as she asked the question.
There is an overlap in building up an evidence base for the way in which local economies—which involve a whole range of sustainable provisions for housing, transport and so on—fit into the sustainable economy, society and community of the local area. We will see what will help and what will hinder. All this will overlap directly with the economic assessment and reinforces
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