Police and Justice Bill

I see my noble friend’s intervention as helpful. I know we share the same objective in the end: to ensure that partnerships work well. I understand the point about partnership fatigue, not least because, like him, I have felt somewhat overburdened by the commitment to different partnerships in the past. Partnerships are not just important but highly significant. The danger of going for the two-partner approach—which is effectively what the amendment would achieve—is that those others who are important and, I argue, integral to valuable partnership working at a local level will feel downgraded and not as valued as they formerly were. I have acknowledged that one would expect local authorities with their professionalism, and police authorities with their professionalism and expertise in dealing with strategic matters, to play a leading role. There is no suggestion that that would be in any way downgraded in partnership working. There is added value in bringing others in and making them feel not the most important but certainly equal partners, in terms of their commitment, and making the work of countering crime and disorder activity more widely valued than just within the local authority and policing family. Amendment No. 118 looks at the process of separating out the strategic responsibilities of the crime and disorder reduction partnerships from those relating to operational delivery. We see the group composition recommendation as an endorsement of the recommendation outlined in the crime and disorder review, which also proposes the need to separate the operational and strategic obligations of the partnership to facilitate delivery, so we recognise the terms and parameters of this debate. We are fulfilling our commitment to consult CDRP responsible authorities and other stakeholders on how such a proposed separation of strategic and operational functions could be established and implemented. It would be counterproductive to enforce a definitive structure in primary legislation until that consultation process has been completed. There is still something to be learned from that. For that reason we propose taking a power in new Section 6 of the Crime and Disorder Act to use secondary legislation to bring about change in the most effective way. We want to listen to the voices that need to be heard throughout the consultation and learn from their important messages. Amendments Nos. 119 to 126 are clearly very important. The Bill already incorporates provisions that will provide for the inclusion, removal and review through secondary legislation of those persons or bodies listed as the responsible authorities for the CDRP, though subject to the duty to consider crime and disorder in their work, and those deemed relevant authorities for the purposes of information-sharing under Section 115 of the Crime and Disorder Act. Amendments Nos. 119, 123 and 125 add no new support to those provisions and would duplicate requirements already outlined in the Bill. Amendments Nos. 120, 124 and 126 propose to remove the clause that would allow the Secretary of State to alter or remove those persons or bodies listed under the categories mentioned previously. The proposal to take the power to alter the list of authorities under these categories arose from the findings of the CDA review, and reflects the opinion of a great number of stakeholders who saw the need for the Government to be able to alter those lists without recourse to primary legislation. We in turn are keen to reduce bureaucracy. That is why we want to take a power to alter these lists by means of secondary rather than primary legislation. There may be occasions when this is needed in the future and secondary legislation represents a much simpler and faster way of achieving the same result. It will also allow us to react to the rapidly changing nature of the wider partnership landscape. The power is subject to the affirmative resolution procedure and the Committee will have an opportunity to monitor and scrutinise its use. I turn to Amendment No. 121. It was highlighted through the CDA review that not all partners play an active role in the CDRP and more specifically in the development and implementation of the crime and disorder strategy. New Section 6(3)(c) in Schedule 7 was drafted to ensure that all responsible authority members of the partnership are encouraged to play an equal role in crime and disorder partnership work, and not to give any one partner primacy. In addition, this clause is key to delivering the strategic operational split of the crime and disorder reduction partnerships’ work as set out in the Crime and Disorder Act review.