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Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill

moved Amendment No. 190: 190: Before Clause 125, insert the following new Clause— ““Contractors’ duty to co-operate Where any private or voluntary organisation is paid by a local authority to provide a public service or function, that organisation shall in relation to that service or function— (a) provide information requested by a relevant overview and scrutiny committee, as defined by the Local Government Act 2000 (c. 22), (b) attend at a relevant overview and scrutiny committee to answer questions, (c) consider any report or recommendations of an overview and scrutiny committee, and (d) respond to the overview and scrutiny committee indicating what (if any) action the organisation proposes to take.”” The noble Baroness said: My Lords, I thought that I should speak to this amendment in case your Lordships thought that we were going to get through the whole of the second half without anyone speaking to an amendment. Amendments Nos. 190, 193 and 194 are related amendments and are all to do with the importance of proper scrutiny. As we have learnt from debates on earlier clauses, the Government are now moving much more strongly towards a model of council management in which there is a strong leader and the majority of councillors are engaged in scrutiny. Effective scrutiny forms a large part of government proposals for local authorities. If local councils are to scrutinise effectively, their scrutiny must include the partnerships that they all have with other local authorities and with the voluntary and private sectors. The White Paper on which the Bill is based stresses the importance of that pluralist approach to service provision. If scrutiny is to be effective, members of overview and scrutiny committees may have to talk to some of those partners. My Amendment No. 190 includes contractors in the scope of the Bill. When services are outsourced and the contracts are let, there is always a major public concern that there will be a loss of transparency in how services are delivered and what will happen when things go wrong. It will quite often be the case that when an overview and scrutiny committee looks at one of these issues, one of the main points at issue may be the way in which the council has let or managed the contract. If the only person to whom the overview and scrutiny committee talks comes from the council, which is what the Minister suggested in Committee, the committee will hear only one side of the story. The contractor may have real problems with the way in which the council is managing the contract but the overview and scrutiny committee will not know that because it will not be able to talk to the contractor. If it is to scrutinise effectively, it is important to have all the tools available. After all, we are talking about very large sums of public money here. It does not matter who is providing the service, a principle is involved that no one should be shielded from effective public scrutiny. Amendments Nos. 193 and 194 seek to do the same thing but with relevant partner authorities. As local area agreements and partnership increase in importance, it is vital that an overview and scrutiny committee is able, where appropriate, to talk to other partners involved in the delivery of services. I beg to move.