[Ed Hammond]

Having said all that, it's now been delayed again. Publication was indeed due tomorrow, but it has been put back - we are now back to the position of not knowing when it is out, but apparently next Tuesday or Wednesday looks likely.

It is explained more fully in the LGC - http://www.lgcplus.com/policy-and-politi...22890.blog - not behind their paywall so you all should be able to access it.

We are delaying publication of our planned policy briefing on the change of executive arrangements made possible by the Bill so that we can include the Bill's exact provisions, so sorry for the extended delay to this. To remind you we will be doing a full briefing on the whole Bill and putting it on the website hopefully within 48 hours of publication - but don't hold me to that!

[Ed Hammond]

I now have it on good authority that it's going to be the New Year.

*sigh*

[Jack Latkovic]

Interesting to hear speculation around a strengthening of the Local Government Ombudsmen to "require" councils to act on its recommendations. How does this effect the balance of local accountability?

[Ed Hammond]

Those of you who listen to the Today programme will have heard that the Bill will now apparently be published today! It will go along the announcement of the grant allocation.

I plan to produce a detailed briefing on these two important issues for publication later this week. I will produce a short summary today soon after publication and we can discuss the practical implications on this thread.

On Adam's question:

1) It's *a*ffect - honestly, you can't get the staff these days

2) Yes, it's interesting to see a national body being given beefed up powers to require local government to do things - this rather seems like the antithesis of localism. I will have to speak to LGO people and civil servants at CLG and see if I can make something more of it.

[Ed Hammond]

The publication of the Bill today is being trailed by a document co-produced by Greg Clark and Nick Clegg setting out the wider context for decentralisation:

http://www.communities.gov.uk/documents/...793908.pdf

It is good to see these kinds of documents - they demonstrate that Government is thinking about the wider implications of legislation and show that the Bill isn't the be all and end all. It also shows that they are keen to continue having a dialogue with practitioners and the public about all these proposals - the paper invites responses, and I would certainly suggest that you talk to your members about whether you might submit such a response. We do know that civil servants are open to changing their approach on policy further to consultations - witness their reconsideration of the proposals to abolish statutory health scrutiny for example.

[Ed Hammond]

CLG press release here:

http://www.communities.gov.uk/news/corporate/1794946

Bill will apparently be published at 4pm this afternoon. I'll post a quick summary at about 4.30.

[Ed Hammond]

Handy NLGN briefing here:

http://www.nlgn.org.uk/public/wp-content...m-Bill.pdf

And interesting background to the grant allocation and the Bill can be found on the LGC's blog (not behind their paywall, apparently)

http://www.lgcplus.com/news/spending-rev...22665.blog

[Jack Latkovic]

Ehammond Wrote:Those of you who listen to the Today programme will have heard that the Bill will now apparently be published today! It will go along the announcement of the grant allocation.

I plan to produce a detailed briefing on these two important issues for publication later this week. I will produce a short summary today soon after publication and we can discuss the practical implications on this thread.

On Adam's question:

1) It's *a*ffect - honestly, you can't get the staff these days

2) Yes, it's interesting to see a national body being given beefed up powers to require local government to do things - this rather seems like the antithesis of localism. I will have to speak to LGO people and civil servants at CLG and see if I can make something more of it.

Yes - I can see how you might have trouble retaining staff...

At first glance the role of the LGO looks to be picking up the most substantive cases from the Standard Boards regime.and bringing serious abuses to criminal court. However, there seems to be scope for a broader role for the LGO to legally compell local authorities to impliment its findings.

This seems to be part of a broader policy of putting the ombudsmen at the centre of accountability. The LGO will (unoficially) be given a responsability to handle reported local Compact disputes (PO for non-complience in government departments). The Accountability and Transparency mechanisms for the renewed Compact (and the Compact itself) will be imminently..

[Ed Hammond]

I'll see what's in the Bill - full details in due course.

We are now in the odd position where the Bill has been published but no-one can see it yet. CLG will be putting it on their website "in an hour or so, maybe" (an actual quote). I haven't seen the Bill. But I have spoken to someone who has...

On scrutiny - the Bill apparently has a large section on scrutiny. Before you get too excited (or frightened) this is apparently because the Bill seeks to consolidate a lot of the existing legislation on the subject. It will apparently roll together a lot of the scrutiny content from the 2000, 2007 and 2009 Acts, without significant amendments. This includes all your favourite scrutiny powers including the requirement to have a statutory scrutiny officer.

On executive arrangements, it appears that the existing executive arrangements will remain and that if any authority wishes to adopt a different system they will have to apply for permission to the Secretary of State to change their arrangements... on which the Secretary of State must consult before making his decision. Now, I don't know how accurate this is because I have heard it third hand and may have misunderstood, and I'm not sure if this means that councils may return to the committee system without such a reference, but it's certainly interesting.

I don't know at this stage whether the statutory requirement to have a scrutiny function in the first place has been removed but judging by the foregoing this seems unlikely.

More as I get it...

[Ed Hammond]

I should also say that I don't know whether the Bill will equalise scrutiny powers in two-tier areas in some of the ways that we have been arguing for, or whether it seeks to include some of the stuff that was in the O&S Bill earlier this year.