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Local Authorities (Overview and Scrutiny) Bill

The hon. Gentleman raises an important practical example, demonstrating why we want the Bill to be improved and more tightly worded. The other obvious example is the post office closure programme, which was incredibly controversial in many local communities. It affected all local communities, including my own, but, based on clause 1 as drafted, it would not fall within the scope of an overview and scrutiny committee. The committee would not be able to question Post Office managers about the way its service proposals might affect local communities and businesses, and we have some concerns about that. Clause 1 also includes the power to designate""(a) generally, or""(b) in respect of services"." Does the Minister feel that there is a danger of the designation becoming broader than necessary? We want to ensure that the Bill is effective, but that it does not become so broad that it ends up being cumbersome for all concerned. More clarity from the Minister would help our understanding of the clause's breadth. Specifically, will regional development agencies be included? The hon. Member for Hendon is clearly concerned about transport providers, and many London MPs regard them as bodies providing public services that their local councillors may well want to scrutinise. Once we have agreed which public service providers come under the designation, the next question is, what activities will be scrutinised? The Bill's definition of a matter "of local concern" is vague, so will the issues that it covers be consistent with those that were outlined in the Department's 2009 Green Paper, "Strengthening Local Democracy"? That document mentioned police strategies, fire and rescue authority plans, council delivery of education and wider issues that were not related to local area agreement targets. Given that the Bill follows on from that Green Paper, will it be consistent, to all intents and purposes, with that document's list of issues? The Department's press notice on 1 February stated that the scrutiny arrangements "could" mean that service providers were held to account on issues "like" energy companies leaving repairs unfinished, station safety and facilities and the availability of rural bus services. Will the remit extend to local matters that have not occurred but might do, such as a potential post office closure, or a potential change? People are often concerned about such change before it occurs. Many local authorities will want to scrutinise decisions before they are taken, but the Bill restricts them to scrutinising decisions that have already been taken. I shall move on, as I do not want to detain the House for too long. The Bill also covers the information that scrutiny committees can require from the relevant bodies and services. An appropriate representative can be required to appear before the committee to answer questions and the organisation can be required to reply to reports or recommendations. We see the merit in that. Obviously, granting councils a full range of scrutiny powers over local bodies is a step in the right direction, but we need to be careful that the regulations brought in by the Secretary of State do not impose an excessive burden on organisations affected by the Bill. It would help if the Minister told us a little more about the breadth and formulation of those regulations. What criteria might the Secretary of State and the Minister use to determine any limits on these powers? Clause 3(1) talks about committees having information that they "reasonably" require; in Committee, it will be important to talk in more depth about what, in practice, that reasonableness test might be. The impact assessment accompanying the Bill estimates that the private and public sectors could face an extra £285,000 and £35,000 respectively in compliance costs. Ministers must have made some sort of detailed assessment to come up with such figures, and I should like to know about that assessment in a bit more detail. I deal now with the issue of having executive council members on the committee. I want to flag up a concern about that, as it seems to go against what Ministers were saying back in 2000, when they brought forward the more dramatic changes to the management of councils. The Bill starts to go back on the distinction between councillors involved in delivering policy and those involved in scrutiny. It would be helpful to hear a bit more about why the hon. Member for Bury, North and the Minister—the Government support the Bill—feel that that is a good move and is worth doing. Will it not undermine the overall structure of accountability, which has proved useful to many local councils? The Centre for Policy Studies was previously concerned that the involvement of executive councils in the scrutiny process would blur the lines between the two functions. I want to mention scrutiny within councils and the cost to local authorities. Clause 9 requires that officers should be provided with""such staff, accommodation and other resources"" as are determined by the officer to be sufficient to discharge their functions. The Local Government Association has said that it wants to be left with the ability to make local decisions about how to ensure that scrutiny is well supported within its local authorities. The explanatory notes said that the new powers could cost local authorities £4.5 million, and I am sure that the Minister will confirm that that will come out of their existing budgets. Given the constraints on local authority budgets at the moment, it is particularly important that local authorities be able to make their own decisions about how they want to ensure that councillors involved in scrutiny can scrutinise well. For many councils, that may well mean more of a focus on developing the councillors' skill sets rather than having support for them. To my mind, that would be no bad thing at all, although it would not necessarily mean the approach to scrutiny and its resourcing that is set out in the Bill, which is too prescriptive in many respects. The 2008 Centre for Policy Studies survey of local government scrutiny found that there was a slight negative trend in the size of allocated discretionary budgets for scrutiny. Clearly, there is a change of approach among local authorities in respect of resourcing scrutiny. It is important that we work with them to find out how they feel it can best be delivered. My last point is about joint committees, and I want to issue a challenge to the Minister. The Bill talks about joint overview and scrutiny committees. As I am sure the Minister is aware, those were enacted, as it were, in January this year, but the regulations to enable them to come into being with the powers given by last year's Bill have not gone through Parliament. Given that, technically, the committees do not yet exist, it seems a bit presumptuous that this Bill should extend their powers further. Will the Minister enlighten the House on when those regulations will pass through Parliament, so that joint overview and scrutiny committees can be properly established? Broadly, we believe that the Bill could move the quality of scrutiny at the local level in the right direction, so we shall not stand in its way. We have some concerns, which I have begun to outline, about the wording and breadth of clauses and how effective they may prove. However, we look forward to working with the Government and the hon. Member for Bury, North in Committee. I look forward to hearing the Minister's response.