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Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill

moved Amendment No. 219B: 219B: After Clause 238, insert the following new Clause— ““Enabling the delegation of benefits administration to local authorities (1) The Secretary of State may enter into arrangements with a local authority for the discharge of all or any of the specified functions of the Secretary of State by that local authority and within the area of that authority. (2) The specified functions shall comprise— (a) the administration of benefits under the Social Security Administration Act 1992 (c. 5) and the Social Security Contributions and Benefits Act 1992 (c. 4); (b) the administration of payments under the Jobseekers Act 1995 (c. 18); (c) functions under sections 2 and 10 of the Employment and Training Act 1973 (c. 50); (d) powers to direct the use of funds by the Learning and Skills Council under Part 1 of the Learning and Skills Act 2000 (c. 21); (e) the functions of the Secretary of State under section 114 of the Learning and Skills Act 2000; and (f) such other functions of the Secretary of State as the Secretary of State may by order specify. (3) Where a local authority has entered into arrangements under subsection (1) in respect of any function, the powers of the local authority under section 2 of the Local Government Act 2000 (c. 22) shall include the power to discharge that function in accordance with the arrangements, and the local authority shall have the same powers and be subject to the same restrictions in respect of that function as the Secretary of State would have been but for the arrangements. (4) The exercise of any function in accordance with arrangements entered under this section shall not constitute a breach of section 3(1) or (2) of the Local Government Act 2000. (5) Arrangements under subsection (1) may include such terms as to commencement, termination, reporting, payment and funding as the Secretary of State and the local authority may set out therein. (6) Where a local authority discharges a function of the Secretary of State in accordance with arrangements under subsection (1), the local authority may contribute to the cost of discharging that function. (7) Any arrangements entered under this section do not prevent the Secretary of State from exercising those functions. (8) References in this section to the discharge of a function include references to the doing of anything which is calculated to facilitate, or is conducive or incidental to the discharge of that function. (9) Nothing in this section affects the operation of the Local Authorities (Goods and Services) Act 1970 (c. 39). (10) In this section, local authority shall mean a district council, a county council, a unitary council or a London Borough Council.”” The noble Baroness said: My Lords, this amendment is grouped with Amendment No. 222B, which was moved by my noble friend Lord Bruce-Lockhart at the previous stage. I was not going to speak to that amendment until I read it again more carefully and realised that it ran side by side with Amendment No. 219B, and I think that I can deal with both at the same time. Both amendments would enable a local authority to provide a unified benefits service for the area, and Amendment No. 222B would enable that to be part of the community strategy. The proposed new power would give a specific but discretionary power to the Secretary of State to delegate to individual local authorities the discharge of benefits functions. On the other side, the general power of the local authority under Section 2 of the Local Government Act to promote the economic, social and environmental well-being of the authority’s area is clarified to provide that it shall include the power to discharge such delegated functions and that the exercise of such delegated functions would not be a breach of the prohibition in Section 3(1) of that Act. The powers that might be delegated to a local authority in this way are set out in subsection (2). They include powers over social security benefits, conditions for jobseeker’s allowance, New Deal payments under Section 2 of the Employment and Training Act, powers for the Learning and Skills Council to spend money on training and such other benefits provisions as the Secretary of State may include by order. The reasoning behind the amendment is that reform of the benefits system is at the heart of the Government’s drive to tackle worklessness and personal empowerment. At present, the administration of benefits is divided between the Secretary of State and local authorities, which administer council tax and housing benefits. It is not integrated with the parallel programmes to support disadvantaged and deprived individuals and households. If local authorities can provide a unified benefits service with a single point of contact which can deal with all the benefits needs of an individual, it would make it much easier for a claimant to secure the full benefits to which they are entitled and would enable the local authority to channel additional support services to that individual or member of a household. Although local authorities would like to have the discretion to vary benefits according to local requirements, the amendment does not seek to do anything like that or to introduce such flexibility, except in so far as a local authority may wish to make its own contribution to the costs of discharging a particular benefits function. However, local authorities hope that in due course, as the Secretary of State reviews the various benefits regulations, he will feel able to introduce a degree of local flexibility where the benefits are administered by a local authority under such delegation arrangements. Until that occurs, the administering local authority will have to operate the delegated functions strictly within the existing, very limited discretions. The proposed new power is expressed both as a discretionary power for the Secretary of State to delegate particular functions to individual authorities and as a clarification of the existing power of local authorities to do anything that is calculated to promote the economic, social or environmental well-being of their area. It is therefore not a mandatory provision but at the discretion of the Secretary of State where he is satisfied that a particular authority has the capacity to take on the administration of such benefits and the authority is willing to do that. The assumption is that the Secretary of State, as part of the delegation arrangements, will transfer appropriate funding not as part of the block grant but as a specific payment agreement in respect of both the administration costs and the direct costs of the benefits themselves. This will enable the Secretary of State to retain control over the overall cost of delegated functions. The provision makes it clear that it is for the Secretary of State to agree the manner in which particular functions are delegated. The power of the local authority to take on such delegations or functions is expressed as a clarification of the well-being powers in Section 2 of the Local Government Act 2000—the powers given to district councils, unitary councils, London borough councils—as these authorities are currently responsible for the administration of council tax benefit and housing benefit. I beg to move.