East Midlands Councillor Development Network

East Midlands Councillor Development Network

Localism Support22nd June 2011

Alan Waters, LGIU

Overview of the Localism Bill & Relationship with Big

Society

Big Society – key concepts1. Empowering

communities: ‘giving local councils and neighbourhoods more power to take decisions and shape their area’.

2. Opening up public services: ‘the Government’s public service reforms will enable charities, social enterprises, private companies and employee-owned co-operatives to compete to offer people high quality services’.

3. Promoting social action: ‘encouraging and enabling

people from all walks of life to play a more active part in society, and promoting more volunteering and Philanthropy’.

Source: Building a Stronger Civil Society Office for Civil Society 2010

The Localism Bill

• It is huge – several bills rolled into one. – 405 pages– 208 clauses– 24 schedules– Over 140 regulation making powers,

order making powers, guidance, statutory requirements, duties.

The Localism Bill

Covers - powers and governance - finance - ‘Big Society’ - Planning & Housing

Police

Duty on local councils and other local partners to work together to agree a single set of priorities through a Sustainable Community Strategy and a Local Area Agreement

Three year delivery plan:Local Area Agreement (LAA)

Council

Local Neighbourhoods

Local Strategic Partnership

Long term Sustainable Community Strategy (SCS)

Local Charters

Local Charters

Health Private sector

Community sector

Local Neighbourhoods

Big Society – a reaction to Labour’s ‘command and control’ model ?

Localism Bill to deliver….

• shift of emphasis to ‘outward’ accountability – to the citizen than to Whitehall

• devolution to the lowest levels (“central government isn’t giving power to councils to then see it recentralised locally “ Grant Shapps MP, Communities and Local Government Minister)

Progress of the Bill

• Completed its Commons stages – mostly unchanged

• House of Lords – consideration of the bill x2 a week until the recess.

• Current debates around whether there should be an overarching statement about local governance

Progress of the Bill

• Some amendments tabled about the GPC & council constitutions.

• Public Service Reform White Paper (when published) may impact on final shape of ‘Community Right to Challenge’

• Amendments on Mayoral arrangements.

1. The General Power of Competence

More Powers for Local Government?

General Power of Competence – clauses 1-7

• Framed as though local authorities can act as an individual (i.e. anything not expressly illegal)

• Councils will be able to make decisions that involve activities anywhere in the UK or abroad, to do so for a commercial purpose –e.g. the external provision of services to other organisations.

• The well-being power is repealed in England; it will continue to apply in Wales

General Power of Competence – clauses 1-7

• GPC will be subject to express limitations on what councils can do in existing legislation

• Duties still exist around e.g. competition, equalities and ‘reasonableness

• Secretary of State reserves the power to make orders preventing specific activities using the power

• Highly centralised local government environment likely to narrow the interpretation of GPC in the courts

More Power to the People?

Local Referendums on general issues: Clauses 39-

55• Allowing local people and councils to

instigate local referendum. • Triggered by a local petition if

signed by 5% of the electorate within a period of six months.

• The petition can be based on the whole area, a ward, or adjoining wards

Local Referendums on general issues: Clauses 39-

55• The referendum must be held within 12

months.• If it is on a subject over which it has an

influence, the local authority is required to consider what steps, if any, it will take as a result

• The Bill allows the Secretary of State scope to introduce later regulations varying the scheme e.g. changing the % of the electorate required to sign a petition.

Council Tax Referendums: clause 56 and Schedules 5&6

Requirement for local authorities to hold a referendum if they seek to set a level of council tax that this above the threshold considered ‘excessive’ by reference to regulations made by the Secretary of StateA centralising mechanism for the SoS to set the amount of council tax.

Community Right to Challenge: Clauses 66 -70

• The Bill opens up the way for voluntary and community organisations, not for profit, charities and social enterprises to trigger a procurement process by expressing an interest in providing or assisting in the provision of council services.

• Consultation on Right to Challenge’ points out that those who initiate the process, don’t necessarily win the glittering prize.

• 12 week consultation – ended 3rd May 2011

Community Right to Challenge: Clauses 66 -70

• Mechanism to “break open” what are characterised as public sector monopolies

• Process is complex – the ‘right to challenge’ will not modify the procurement process.

• Impact on Local authority commissioning strategies.

Henry VIII Clauses

• These allow a Minister to use regulations to create new laws which have the same force as Acts of Parliament but which don’t undergo the same rigorous process.

• Localism Bill peppered with HVIII clauses.

Assets of Community Value (Clauses 71-82)

A community right to buy requiring local councils to draw up and publish a list of assets of community value – this right provides a route for community groups to express an interest in bidding for assets. Covers privately owned assets.

Assets of Community Value (Clauses 71-82)

Councils will be responsible for maintaining lists of properties & will be responsible for notifying owners and occupiers of listings and maintaining an accurate list.

Assets of Community Value (Clauses 71-82)

Councils will be responsible for maintaining lists of properties & will be responsible for notifying owners and occupiers of listings and maintaining an accurate list.

Assets of Community Value (Clauses 71-82)

• 12 week consultation (ended 3rd May)• Promotes the CLGs preferred option• Financial costs to local government in

setting the scheme up; managing the asset lists; assessing and paying compensation (!)

• Links to ‘community right to challenge’ transfer of services and assets.

Planning and Neighbourhoods (Clauses 89-93,

96 -101)Aim: to allow communities to shape their local environments. Key elements:Neighbourhood development orders:Neighbourhood development plansCommunity Right to build orders

Planning and Neighbourhoods (Clauses 89-93,

96 -101)Key elements:neighbourhood development orders:Will be made by a local planning authority on the application of a parish council or neighbourhood forum and will grant planning permission for a particular development or type of development

Planning and Neighbourhoods (Clauses 89-93,

96 -101)A neighbourhood development plan:Will set out policies for the development and use of land in the neighbourhood and is similarly made on the application of a parish council or neighbourhood forum.

Planning and Neighbourhoods (Clauses 89-93,

96 -101)In each case the local authority, at the end of a lengthy process, must make an order if the result of a local referendum – of electors able to vote in council elections – shows that more than half those taking part support the proposal. Note: A neighbourhood forum can qualify for recognition with as few as three local residents as board members and may be made up of people who live in, or want to live in the area.

Planning and Neighbourhoods (Clauses 89-93,

96 -101)Community Right to build order:For a specified development on a specified site within a neighbourhood area. The Bill provides for applications to be made by community organisations which can show that more than half the members of the organisation live in the neighbourhood at the time the application was made. (Same process as involved with a neighbourhood development order – culminating in a referendum if the proposal approved)

A radical measure?

Local participation – but subject to limitsActivities involved in obtaining an order or establishing a plan will require considerable capacity and resources at neighbourhood level. Probable that these demands will open the way for commercial developers to play a role in funding these exercises.Considerable costs will be borne by responsible local authorities in dealing with supporting applicants; including funding the cost of a referendum.

Impact of other Government policies

E.g. March Budget & Planning.•Expectation that all bodies involved in planning to prioritise growth and jobs; introduce a new presumption in favour of sustainable development, so that the default answer to development is ‘yes’•Streamlined planning process

Governance arrangements and accountability

‘Big society plans raise concerns for parliamentary

democracy’Guardian (22.1.11)

Issues of transparency & accountability

• Scale of the Coalition’s ambitions to devolve power to local communities and outsource services to charities and the private sector

• Concerns by the information commissioner that outsourced services could end up outside the scope of the Freedom of Information Act

• Need for an FO1 2.0 along side privatisation and outsourcing of government functions.

Governance arrangements

Localism Bill sets out the governance options that will be available to local authorities•Leader and Cabinet•An executive mayor and cabinet•A committee system•Another model – subject to SoS approval.•Scrutiny powers have been consolidated in the Bill, largely unamended the previous legislation.

Governance arrangements

• Significant consolidation of power with proposed executive models

• SoS can transfer any public function to an Executive mayor. Variable powers

• Executive arrangements must continue to have at least one scrutiny committee

• Councils reverting to the Committee system & 4th option councils (?) not obliged to have a scrutiny committee

The Committee system in a changed world

• Will need to reflect public sector reform

- Health and Well-being boards - Police & Crime Panels - Plurality of service providers (CRTC) - Local Enterprise Partnerships. Trend in the direction of more

scrutiny

A new role for scrutiny?

Scrutiny and health • Abolition of PCTs and SHAs

• New NHS Commissioning Board

• GP consortia to commission services from private/third/public sector

• Councils to set up Health & Wellbeing Boards (HWBs) and get public health functions

• Health scrutiny powers to be invested in councils

Scrutiny and Policing • Abolition of Police Authorities - new Police

& Crime Panels comprising at least 10 directly elected representatives– review the draft Police and Crime Plan

and annual report– scrutinise Commissioner decisions– power to require the Commissioner and

staff to attend Panel meetings– able to veto a Commissioner’s

proposed budget by a three quarters majority vote

– able to veto any candidate recommended by the Commissioner for Chief Constable

Scrutinising ‘Localism’: (1) Referenda

• To investigate issues that could be subject to referenda or where a referendum is planned.

• Identify issues of public concern.

(2) Community Right to Challenge:

Role of Scrutiny:•Review council procurement policies•Consider the criteria based on social, economic and environmental considerations when coming to a judgement on accepting ‘expressions of interest’.•Watching brief, once the contracts have been awarded.

(3) Assets of Community Value

Role of Scrutiny:•Help identify ‘community assets’ based on discussions with local people – ensuring that the process for putting the list together is transparent and accurately reflects public views.•Inform local definitions of ‘community interest groups’ and who should be included in the list of consultees.

(4) Housing

Scrutiny Role:

Tenancy strategies will be important documents. Scrutiny could investigate to what extent they assist both housing supply and housing mobility.

2000

EXECUTIVE

SCRUTINY

2010

EXECUTIVE

SCRUTINY

A dream come true?

Local Councils meeting once a year to set contracts

The late Nicholas Ridley, former Secretary of State for the Environment

2015

The Impact on Elected Members as community

leaders

Changing places

Scrutiny by communities & ‘real people’

‘Big Society’: inheritance from the previous

Government?

• The council as a ‘commissioner’ rather than provider of services

• A partner & ‘place shaper’ responsible for ‘well-being’ of the community

• Power traded for ‘influence’?• Growth of the Scrutiny role

The Finance Context

• Cuts in local authority budgets of around 25% over the lifetime of the CSR

• Two year settlement – ‘cuts frontloaded’• Assumption about different types of

partnership working delivering savings and providing ‘affordable’ services.

• Business – the key partner of Government• Assumption about expansion of private

sector and private sector practices

A taste for ‘Tea Party’ politics?

Strong politics

Logic of choiceLogic of care

Thin politics

Options for enabling

Local government promotes and regulates a ‘market’ of service providers reflecting preferences of budget holding users who commission directly through user–led consortia

Local government facilitates a ‘market’ of service providers to meet the preferences of individual users

Local government determines what should be provided and how based on local priorities, (balancing technical assessments of need with political demands mediated by local representatives)

Local government facilitates a network of delivery options reflecting decisions made through collective encounters between communities, politicians and professionals

Sullivan, 2010

Handling market failure

Posing the question

Is the localism bill an extension of local freedom or

a significant advance in centralisation?

A curate’s egg ?

CLG Select Committee

• Concept of ‘localism’ unclear and ignored by some Whitehall departments.

• Ministers need to rein in their interventionist instincts & tackle accountability issues

• Radical reform of the funding of local government

• Localism undermined if councils are expected to transfer powers

• ‘Local Government in danger of being left out in the cold’

Audit

• Local rights but central control of the strings

• Council Tax referenda• Mayoral referenda• Use of regulatory powers• Powers to tell councils how to deliver

services• Rights that have been created v.

cumbersome & expensive

Audit

• Small number of elected mayors may have services transferred to them

But • Majority of councils losing powers - schools - elected police commissioners - LEPs (business led) - Tight grip on finances

• Councils strategic framework: find ways to turn fragmentation into co-operation.

- placed based budgets - alternatives to referenda by strengthening existing councillor routes to raising and resolving issues and supporting local aspirations - careful study of (as yet unpublished) regulations. - Interaction between local freedoms and other legislation (e.g. Planning)

Possible ways forward