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Policing and Crime Bill

My Lords, we have some sympathy with Amendment 11, which specifies that when a chief officer is acting under the terms of the collaboration agreement which cuts across a number of force areas, he can be held to account by police authorities jointly. It is important that a mechanism is set up to see that the joint arrangements are working. In Committee, the Minister said that new Section 23D(3), ""encourages consideration of joint committees for this purpose".—[Official Report, 22/6/09; col. 1413.]" He seems to suggest that there might be alternative mechanisms for accountability and collaboration arrangements. It would be helpful to know whether that is the case. Perhaps the Minister could give examples of the ways in which accountability can be achieved in the circumstances. In any event, if the Minister is willing to give an assurance that subsection (3) will have the effect desired by the noble Baroness, we would be willing to accept that. In regard to Amendment 15, our attention alighted on the sentence of the noble Baroness about there being some merit in the suggestion that some employment and procurement difficulties in collaborations might be eased by the ability to delegate to some of the other functions in those areas. That relates to the problem posed by the Local Government Act where there is an inability to delegate. Is there any way in which to allow police authorities to delegate some of the functions to other police authorities without amending primary legislation?