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Local Authorities (Overview and Scrutiny) Bill

At the outset, I should declare a non-remunerated interest: I am the chairman of the Centre for Public Scrutiny. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Bury, North (Mr. Chaytor) for his kind remarks about the centre's work and the support that it has given him in preparing the Bill. I very much welcome the Bill and congratulate my hon. Friend on his choice of subject. All of us in the House are aware of the importance of scrutiny in achieving a range of different objectives. First, it advances good government, on the simple principle that an executive is always kept more on its toes if its activities are properly scrutinised, whether in local government, here or anywhere else. Secondly, scrutiny is a way of identifying opportunities for doing things better—finding innovative ways of tackling problems or saving money by achieving objectives in a more cost-effective way. That has been demonstrated across a range of different scrutiny activities at both central and local government levels. Thirdly, scrutiny can help to identify areas where we could ensure better co-ordination between different agencies, all of which have a role in the delivery of public services. That, of course, is very much the focus of the Bill. As we all know, we have a long tradition of scrutiny here, but the tradition in local government is much shorter. My hon. Friend has highlighted the progress since the Local Government Act 2000 in the extension of scrutiny and scrutiny powers in local government, including the extension to cover other functions such as policing and health, which has been enacted by subsequent legislation. The Bill is an important further step along the route of extending and embedding the principle of good scrutiny at a local level. I very much welcome it. The extension of the powers to require evidence and to require people in certain circumstances to appear in front of a scrutiny committee is important. There is anecdotal evidence that in some cases local authorities seeking to scrutinise have found it difficult to secure the attendance of partners or other local authorities with a significant role in the delivery of public services; they have been reluctant to submit themselves to local authority scrutiny. In my view, it is absolutely right that the additional powers should be provided. At the same time, it is right that the way the legislation is drafted should not seek to impose too prescriptive an approach. One of the strengths of the way scrutiny has developed in local government has been the capacity of individual authorities to be innovative and try approaches slightly different from those of their neighbours. We should continue to encourage that; we should allow the greatest possible flexibility and freedom for authorities to develop not only their own scrutiny functions, but joint scrutiny activities with other authorities and the scrutiny of their partners in innovative ways. We need to think much more about how to disseminate good practice. My hon. Friend was kind enough to refer to the Centre for Public Scrutiny's annual scrutiny awards and the focus that they are intended to give to spreading good practice and highlighting examples of innovative work by local authorities, on the basis that others should learn from that. I support all that, but there is a curious gap in the process as far as we in the House are concerned. For all the talk of better scrutiny, I can see no evidence whatever of any Select Committees entering into joint scrutiny functions with local scrutiny committees or seeing the scope for using the evidence that emerges from local scrutiny to support or underpin their work. It is surprising that we operate in two separate silos—central and local government. We are not exploring the scope for better joint working to the extent that we should. Although Select Committees are not covered by the Bill, I hope that in our consideration of the principle of bringing together different public authorities responsible for delivering services and of the impact they have on a particular area, which is very much part of the Bill, we will also consider how we can bring together the scrutiny functions of our Select Committees and those of local authority scrutiny committees and learn from each other's good practice. Both my hon. Friend and the hon. Member for Putney (Justine Greening) mentioned resources for scrutiny, and I endorse the view that the scrutiny function has to be properly resourced. That is clearly a difficult ask at a time when public funding is under considerable pressure, but it is a false economy to believe that we can cut back on that function, which is a very small part of total local authority budgets, and not have adverse consequences. The potential loss from less efficient scrutiny will be felt over time through less efficient services, as old and perhaps outmoded practices are allowed to continue longer than they should because they are not challenged, as the scope for making savings by doing things better is not identified and as the scope for different public authorities to work better together to make savings in public expenditure is not picked up. It would be a wholly false economy to cut back on scrutiny expenditure at the present time as a way of saving money, because it represents a very small proportion of total local government spending and it is important that the scrutiny function is handled well. The context of Total Place, an important current initiative, makes that all the more important. Through it we are beginning to understand the scale of total public investment in individual areas. If there is good scrutiny in parallel with that, it will surely help to ensure that we indentify areas in which resources could be better used and those in which there is scope for savings. That seems to me a fertile area for good scrutiny in future. I welcome the Bill, and there are only two elements of it that I have reservations about, which I shall highlight before I conclude. The first is the exclusion of district councils in two-tier areas. The Local Government Association has raised this issue. I can understand the argument about the need to avoid unnecessary duplication, but excluding district councils entirely is using a sledgehammer to crack a nut. Surely it would be better to have a protocol arrangement to ensure that there was no duplication. If a district council in a two-tier area intended to set up scrutiny of a wider range of other authorities, it should first be required to consult the county council and other district councils. There should also be an obligation to set up a joint scrutiny committee or to work in collaboration to avoid the problem of duplication. That seems to me a much better approach than simply debarring district councils from being involved in the scrutiny in question in two-tier areas. Secondly, clause 8(3) raises a difficult constitutional issue. Proposed new section 21(9A)(a) of the Local Government Act 2000 would allow executive members to be members of scrutiny committees, provided that they were not scrutinising the executive itself. The hon. Member for Putney raised that concern. I believe that when she looks at the Hansard reference, she will see that she referred to the Centre for Policy Studies. I guess that her brief said "CPS"—I think she meant the Centre for Public Scrutiny.