Police and Justice Bill

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Linklater, for the way in which she has opened this issue, because it gives me an opportunity to respond and explain how we see it. Clause 25 is significant because local authorities must have the flexibility to make appropriate local decisions to ensure that their functions are carried out as effectively as possible, not least those of tackling anti-social behaviour by young people and providing effective support to parents. We have touched on our agreement on multi-agency working. The ability to contract out all or some of their parenting contract and order-seeking powers to other bodies, organisations or agencies may assist authorities in their management of strategic and operational functions. Clause 25 inserts a new Section 28A into the Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003 to make it possible for the Secretary of State or the National Assembly for Wales to make an order enabling a local authority to contract out to a specified person the functions of entering into parenting contracts and applying for parenting orders. There may sometimes be a separate specialist agency to which it would be wholly appropriate to contract out, and I know that the noble Baroness would endorse such specialist intervention and approval. Subsection (2) of the new section makes it clear that the order may provide that the local authority’s power to contract out is subject to conditions specified in the order and to any other conditions that the local authority considers appropriate. Local authorities will have discretion on whether to contract out parenting contract and order functions to those bodies specified in the order and will retain the power to discharge that function in their own right whether or not they have contracted out that function. So we have given them the ability to say, ““No, we do not want to do this; we want to do it ourselves, and this is how we are going to do it internally””. Moreover, local authorities, and the persons to whom they contract out, will be required to have regard to guidance issued by the Secretary of State or the National Assembly for Wales, as appropriate. Given the safeguards, we believe that Clause 25 is a perfectly proper provision to include in the Bill and would enable better delivery of what the noble Baroness would like to happen, particularly for multi-agency working and the use of specialists who may be more appropriate to discharge certain functions. The noble Baroness raised the issue of tenant management organisations. There are built-in safeguards in the right to manage process, by which a tenant management organisation takes over management responsibilities from a local housing authority. These safeguards ensure that the tenant management organisation is an accountable and properly constituted body that is competent to undertake housing management functions and has the support of the majority of affected tenants. It is important to bear in mind that many tenant management organisations are made up not of a group of ““Don’t have a clue”” type of tenants but of the more active, more engaged and energetic type of tenants who all live in the same block of flats, and in most cases, the tenant management organisation is run by professional housing managers, support staff and blue-collar workers. I am sure that the noble Baroness knows of other instances in which very effective and committed local people have managed these circumstances much better because they have had a very direct purchase on the outcome. I hope that I have reassured the noble Baroness and put on record how we believe that this provision could be used most effectively. With that assurance, I invite the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment.