Greater London Authority Bill

I seem to have lost my more robust colleagues, so it is left to me alone to fight off this barrage. I shall briefly reiterate what the present Act allows for. Section 67 of the Greater London Authority Act 1999 provides for the appointment of three categories of employees of the authority and allows them to be appointed to the authority in different ways. First, as noble Lords know, the Mayor can appoint two political advisers. Those are personal appointments made by him alone, they do not need to be advertised or subject to competition and they can extend beyond the term of office for which a Mayor is elected. Secondly, he is able to appoint not more than 10 other members of staff, which are open to competition, and appointments are made on merit. Thirdly, the Assembly now appoints all other staff for the authority after consultation with the Mayor, and those appointments are made in similar terms to the appointment of local authority offices under local government legislation. I reassure noble Lords that we are not making these changes with the Bill out of perversity, nor to somehow diminish or cripple the powers of the GLA. We are doing this for rational reasons, of which I hope I can persuade the Committee. Clause 7 amends Section 67 of the Greater London Authority Act 1999 to provide for those staff who are currently appointed by the Assembly to be appointed in future by the authority’s head of paid service. He is the most senior GLA official. He must consult the Mayor and the Assembly before making appointments. He must have regard to available resources and the priorities of the authority in making them. The clause also amends Section 70 of the 1999 Act to allow the head of paid service to set the terms and conditions of the staff he appoints, again after consultation with the Mayor and Assembly. The appointments and terms and conditions of the existing staff have effect as if they had been appointed or set by the head of paid service. Clauses 8 to 10 amend the 1999 Act to enable the Mayor and the Assembly, acting jointly, to appoint the authority’s three statutory posts; the head of paid service, the monitoring office and the chief finance officer, and to set their terms and conditions. Holders of those posts cannot also be members of the authority staff. Clauses 8 to 10 also provide that any appointment or terms and conditions of existing holders of these posts have effect as if they were made under the provisions, as amended by Clause 8. That clause also allows the head of paid service to delegate any of his staffing functions to a member or staff of the authority other than to staff appointed by the Mayor. The arguments that noble Lords have put forward are three: ““The system isn’t broke, it works well, don’t try to fix it, it doesn’t need it””; that the Assembly has important levers in controlling the number and grading of staff and expenditure on staff by having this power; and, implicitly, that it keeps the Mayor under control. We are not making these changes because we think the Assembly has failed to carry out its functions effectively. They are no more than a timely, straightforward and sensible change. The organisation, which has been there since 1999, is maturing and developing, and it needs a clearer set of administrative arrangements that are fit for purpose and appropriate for its tasks. This is a sign of the Assembly growing up. It provides a clear separation between the administrative function of appointing staff and the Assembly’s core functions of scrutiny. It is those core functions that we are seeking to build up with the Bill. My experience, not least in the voluntary sector, is that organisations grow, and that as they mature, they must change. They must take on different functions, and they separate functions so that they become more appropriate. Clarifying and separating the functions in this way is a sign of credit to the organisation, in focusing on what it is there to do and can do best. The change gives the Assembly an opportunity to move forward; it gives it extra space, and I hope it gives it extra energy, in the sense of focus. I hear what noble Lords said about the exchanges in the other place, but there is a serious argument here about taking these appointments out of the political arena. They inevitably become part of the political discourse. This change takes it to a more objective and more appropriate system, and I am surprised it is not more welcome. There are two anomalies in the present system; one is internal, the other comparative. The changes get rid of the first by focusing the staff appointments role at the official level. That takes away the anomaly of most GLA staff working to support the Mayor, yet relying on the Assembly for terms and conditions. It brings the GLA into line with other organisations in terms of good organisational practice, particularly local authorities; it is as simple as that. We would not expect the trustees of a voluntary body—and I think that is a proper analogy—to make staff appointments. We would not expect local councillors to appoint the staff of a local authority. We would expect authorities’ overview and scrutiny committees to maintain oversight, just as the Assembly does. I was searching for a comparison, and I think this is correct: we would not expect a Select Committee of this House or the other place to appoint parliamentary staff. The argument that ““it ain’t broke”” is right, and we are not proposing this change because we think it is; on the contrary, the current system has provided a steady hand on the staffing tiller, but it has also presided, as the noble Baroness said, over a significant growth in staff numbers as the authority has settled into its role. It is possible that there will be less scope for similar rates of growth in the future, and there is therefore an argument that we should move this out of the political arena to a more orthodox way of appointing GLA staff. The noble Baroness put forward a robust argument that the Assembly’s control of the staffing is a vital way of keeping control, as it were, of the organisation and even of the Mayor’s ambitions. But the Assembly retains that power; what else is that power other than its ability to continue to debate, scrutinise and influence the GLA budget and the corporate plan? Those are the key mechanisms for determining the GLA’s overall staffing position. It ensures a more strategic role for the Assembly. The head of paid service will have to consult the Assembly and of course the Mayor, and, in relation to the Assembly’s own staff, there will be for the first time a discrete Assembly budget. I hope the head of paid service, when he reads our proceedings in Committee, is not too disappointed by the expectation that somehow he will not be able to stand up to the Mayor. There were great compliments paid in the other place to the existing office-holder about his overall competence and ability. I have no doubt that he will be able to do the job extremely effectively, and I hope he will not be too dismayed by what the noble Baroness has said. These changes help to put the staffing role on a more strategic footing. I am not being disingenuous here—I genuinely think they help the Assembly to concentrate on its strategic role. I turn to the amendments, which I am afraid I have to resist. I was a bit unclear at first what noble Lords opposite intended with Amendment No. 23. I am clearer now, and I am grateful to the noble Baronesses for that. The amendment enables the head of paid service to determine any matter affecting the establishment of the authority following consultation with the Mayor and the Assembly. In fact, the Bill already gives the head of paid service this power in similar terms. New Section 67(2) allows him to appoint such staff as he considers necessary for the GLA to do its job. I assure noble Lords that we expect the head of paid service, in exercising his new power of appointment, to be responsible for all matters relating to the GLA establishment, including the total numbers of posts and the terms and conditions and grading of post holders, but he will have to consult the Mayor and the Assembly before deciding the overall staffing provision, set out in the authority’s corporate plan, and so on. Amendment No. 23 is unnecessary. Amendment No. 24 requires the head of paid service to give the Assembly a minimum of 28 days’ written notice before each decision he makes about the number of grades, numbers or function of posts or terms of employment. The Mayor and the Assembly can offer comments within that 28-day period, and on making a determination the head of paid service must make a written statement explaining why he has not accepted any of those comments. These are wholly impractical arrangements. The noble Baroness has already explained some of the ways in which the processes of the GLA are somewhat protracted, but this would introduce even more delays and bureaucracy into the system. The amendments would lengthen the period for appointing the authority’s staff, and, crucially, would put the GLA at a real disadvantage when it came to recruiting new talent. The London job market is hugely competitive. If we introduced a delay of 28 days, I dread to think of the number of good people who would have drifted away or found other jobs—because people apply for more than one job at a time, as we know. Organisations need to act quickly, and adding a month to the process of identifying and filling posts would not help the head of paid service to recruit the staff he needs. He already has to consult the Mayor and the Assembly. I would expect him to do that sensibly and pragmatically, and we should not place on his shoulders these additional onerous requirements. I know that is a disappointing response for the noble Baroness, but it is a sincere one, and I hope that on that basis she will feel able to withdraw her amendments.