Police and Justice Bill

moved Amendment No. 81: Page 2, line 35, leave out subsections (1) and (2) and insert— ““The following amendments to the Local GovernmentAct 1999 (c. 27) shall have effect with regard to police authorities— (a) section 1(1)(d) is omitted; (b) section 1(4) is omitted; (c) section 24 is omitted.”” The noble Baroness said: The amendment stands in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Dholakia. As I said at Second Reading, we object to the clause on the grounds that it will give police authorities a duty to secure best value, but no power to enforce that duty. The Bill will remove the ability to commission best value reviews. However, we accept the Government's view that the best value process has become unwieldy and bureaucratic. Our amendments would give authorities the flexibility to scrutinise force activity in a way proportionate to the circumstances. Best value legislation needs to remain applicable to police authorities, especially provisions relating to inspection. That will give the Audit Commission the locus that it needs to participate in joint inspections with the new CJS inspectorate envisaged in paragraph 12 of the schedule. We are, in any event, seeking to have this paragraph removed from the Bill. We do not support the involvement of the Audit Commission in police authority inspection because it does not have the necessary experience and expertise in this area. If the Government are determined to involve the Audit Commission in police authority inspection, the commission has wide enough powers under other legislation which would enable this, and it is always open to the Government to include specific provisions about this in the relevant part of the Bill. However, the Government rejected these amendments in another place because, while committing police authorities to continuous improvement, they disapplied all of best value and shut out the Audit Commission. That is exactly what I intend. The Local Government Act 1999 required councils and police and fire authorities to pursue continuous improvement, but, because there was no real understanding of how to make best value work—reflected not least in inspection—they pursued a sort of paper chase. The annual cost in missed service improvements and savings is hard to judge, but a CBI estimate of March 2005, based on Treasury figures, supports the view that it runs into billions of pounds. A well run value programme should yield a combination of improved services and savings worth 10 times its costs. Continuous improvement methods to review products and services and secure best value can be sought from relevant trading organisations through the marketplace. It is out there and it is not the Audit Commission which supplies it. We have permitted a two-tier system of continuous improvement practice to evolve: the practice of the private sector, for which this work is imperative; and a lesser standard in the public sector, which has muddled along. It is therefore extremely important that police authorities are free to secure the advice of any number of the organisations specialising in this field and to demonstrate to the rest of the public sector how to manage continuous improvement and secure best value. I beg to move.