[Matthew Garrard]

http://services.parliament.uk/bills/2010...ments.html

The Bill is made up of two parts and 431 pages of fun

Part one is the substantive part of the Bill, Scrutiny is at Para 10

Part two is the schedules, Scrutiny is rewritten at Schedule 2

[Ed Hammond]

Here is a quick briefing on the Localism Bill and the grant allocation decision, and what it means for scrutiny in England - in Wales, with local government being a devolved matter, none of this applies. I will produce a full briefing on this later in the week.

Plenty of commentators felt that the grant allocation was the more important of yesterday's announcements. After all, this is about the immediate future - the Bill has many months until it becomes law, and even then its impact will be down to secondary legislation and individual councils' decisions. The grant allocation's effects will begin to be felt now.

Grant allocation

It was announced that no authority will have a reduction of more than 8.9% (with the average being 4.4% according to Eric Pickles) - less than the 14-15% anticipated next year because of front loading. Even so, the real terms impact is likely to be higher because that 8.9% is a cut in "spending power" not the actual grant - the real maximum seems to be more like 11% (and in fact the LGC have conducting an analysis which suggests that in a couple of instances it could be as high as 17%). You will need to bear in mind that other agencies operating in your areas will also be subject to significant budget cuts from April. All this is likely to mean a tricky time for joined-up local service delivery. I would definitely recommend, if you have not already embarked on this, that you give some serious thought to actively engaging with your councils' business planning procedures for 2011/12 and the next few years to ensure that this business planning is undertaken openly and transparently, with significant input from local people and elected non-executive members. There will of course be a statutory consultation on the grant allocation proposals to which individual authorities will be responding in due course.

Localism Bill

The Bill itself is a very long one, bringing in some significant changes to local public services which will have substantial impacts on local accountability. There is a significant drive towards devolution of power directly to local people - the use of referenda and the "community right to manage" and "community right to buy" will have profound effect on the nature of local decision-making and service delivery. An increasingly fragmented framework for governance gives yet more strength to our argument around the need for a "web of accountability" in local areas, an informal coming together of all of those involved in accountability to ensure that all forms of service delivery are subject to robust accountability - a web in which local authorities, and scrutiny councillors, should be at the centre (this extension of the metaphor does not mean that I am characterising councillors as spiders - or dead flies).

The general power of competence will see more authorities embarking on more innovative models of service delivery. The proposals, here and in the Bill, will mean an end to grant ringfencing, and we will also see a right to borrow against future business rate receipts. Full relocalisation of business rates have been mooted but we do not have a timescale yet. This will all naturally require strong accountability and transparency to ensure that money is being spent wisely and effectively. The Bill also allows executive mayors to hold the office of chief executive as well (the SoS has reportedly been very keen on joint mayors/CExs). Of course, even where a mayor is a chief executive too, he or she can't be the Head of Paid Service for obvious reasons.

Scrutiny

More specifically on scrutiny itself, something rather unexpected - a consolidation of the various powers relating to scrutiny. So a lot of the 2000 Act, 2007 Act and 2009 Act provisions are being rolled in to this new Bill (unamended - so the current lopsided nature of many of the powers remains, including the mismatch between councils' powers in two-tier areas). The relevant sections have clearly been cut and pasted - for example, there are various references to local improvement targets, local area agreements and primary care trusts, all concepts and bodies that will not be around for very much longer. This is presumably an oversight that will be tidied up at second reading or at later stages. CCfA will remain, but the provisions relating to petitions are being repealed.

Councils will have the power to adopt different executive arrangements. The options now are cabinet, mayor (both of which are described as "executive arrangements") or the committee system (which is not specifically described). Councils may also propose alternative arrangements but these must receive the approval of the SoS before being given.

Where an authority operates executive arrangements it must still have an O&S committee, with all that entails. Where it operates under the committee system, it "may" operate O&S committees (this seems to mean that streamlined committees under the fourth option will continue to operate, with scrutiny, where authorities wish to do so). Where it operates O&S committees the presumption appears to be that the usual O&S provisions will apply although the specific powers and duties will be subject to regulations, for some reason. Where a committee system authority chooses not to operate O&S committees it will still have to have a committee/committees dealing with health and/or community safety (as appropriate) as if they are O&S committees (so, holding much the same powers).

Changes in governance arrangements

To change between governance regimes it appears that councils must first a) make a resolution to that effect and b) there must be an election. Changed governance arrangements will come into force three days following the election. This seems potentially problematic - where it is one party's policy to change governance arrangements (and a resolution to do so has been passed) but the other party wins, will the proposed governance change be essentially irreversible by the time of election day? It will cause a headache for Monitoring Officers because of the inherent uncertainty involved. There are also certain circumstances where it will be required to hold a referendum on changing governance arrangements. This will be where governance arrangements have been changed fewer than five years ago, or previous governance changes were also made subject to a referendum. Councils can also opt off their own back to hold a referendum although it seems pretty unlikely that any of them would (unless it was in an attempt to bind their successors).

There is lots of other stuff in there and I am still working my way through it, so don't take any of this as read yet - I may have misread bits and selective reading of a few sections may mean that I have got the wrong end of the stick. Insofar as I can though I have checked all this and I think it's accurate. As I said, you can expect a full briefing on the Bill by the end of this week. I will also be publishing something on the Policing Bill, although that is more likely to come out in the New Year. In the New Year I will also be producing an update to our "Pulling it all together" document on scrutiny legislation which will highlight where sections are being changed, replaced or repealed.

INLOGOV have produced a useful summary of the general proposals in the Bill - http://inlogov.blogspot.com/2010/12/loca...?spref=tw. One interesting point they highlight is the lack of focus on the role of councillors, given the central role that neighbourhoods and communities will play in the Big Society.

[Kevin Jacob]

I printed out Volume 2, but now it seems to have disappeared from the Parliament website and only the first volume can be accessed! Some mistake surely!

[Gareth Wall]

kevjac Wrote:I printed out Volume 2, but now it seems to have disappeared from the Parliament website and only the first volume can be accessed! Some mistake surely!

It's still there, just not linked to as its part 2 and a separate document. If you change the " ...part1.pdf" to " ...part2.pdf" in the url it works:

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa...6part2.pdf