Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill

The noble Lord is absolutely right that this is an important part of the Bill. I am grateful to him and to the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, for spelling out what is important about local area agreements and what is defective about the amendment. I shall point out other defects. We are making an extremely important change. It certainly builds on the work that local authorities have done in moving beyond their traditional service delivery in the local area agreements. These new local area agreements will be on a statutory basis for the first time and will go beyond everything that exists at the moment. They will cover everything that a local authority plans to do to improve its area, either in partnership with others—for example, with regard to community safety or economic activity—or indeed on its own. What is proposed will sweep away the current system through which central government, by way of a profusion of area-based funding initiatives, imposed targets and indicators, does business. It really is a very big change—a move towards simplification as a means of reaching agreement on a much smaller set of priorities. I turn to the spirit of the amendment. I could not agree more with the noble Lord that district councils have a very important character and role to play in this arrangement. They have their own democratic legitimacy, their own service responsibilities, and their distinct local characteristics. They engage in many ways rather better with their local communities than the counties and it is of paramount importance that they play a role in the negotiation and delivery of LAAs. Obviously, I understand the noble Lord’s concern. He rightly talks about diversity. I am absolutely sympathetic to that. We cannot legislate to do away with diversity, but I suggest that the diversity in the targets, which will be negotiated from the bottom up, will reflect local concerns, local priorities and a way forward that will make the difference in different local areas. Briefly, we are putting districts on an equal footing with county councils and all other named partners in agreeing targets. That is what will count; agreement on what those targets will actually achieve. First, we specifically committed to a proportion of the national indicator set of 200—no longer 1,200—national targets that will set out the national priorities. Some of those will be set at district or even neighbourhood level, so that a particular district with a particular problem with, say, anti-social behaviour, will be able to set its own specific target. Secondly, we have also made provision for the county council to be required to consult all named partners, including districts, on the county-wide sustainable community strategy. That is the evidence base that will inform the local targets and pick up on the contrasting priorities, whether deprivation or whatever, of individual districts. We have also strengthened the powers of overview and scrutiny in the Bill by giving councils the power to require partner authorities of the LLA to attend overview and scrutiny committees, and are enhancing the districts’ role in other ways. We will talk about that later. I reinforce the point that district authorities are different from the other partners in the list, but the important thing is that they have absolutely equal status when agreeing targets, which is where they will make the most important and effective contribution. It is also important to say that the existing provisions do not create primacy for upper-tier local authorities. Targets will be agreed in negotiation between upper-tier authorities and the other partners, although we know, for the reasons given by the noble Lord, that they are not the same as the other partners. Clause 108 introduces the procedural framework for local area agreements between the responsible authority, partner authorities and the Secretary of State. Clause 107 contains the local improvement targets. We want the provision of effective and coherent services, and I am sure that the noble Lord is at one with us on this. We are asking local authorities to look at complex needs and to see which of the 35 targets will be particularly important and relevant for them. That demands a very clear but shared view of priorities across a range of partners from counties and districts. It is absolutely vital that counties and districts agree on core priorities for their local area to avoid overlapping or contradictory targets. The process itself enables that to happen. District representation is absolutely vital. We will certainly set out in statutory guidance to accompany the Bill our view of minimum expectations so that the local districts that might be slightly laggard will know what we expect them to achieve. We also expect the sector to develop local solutions and to generate their own models of best practice. Some of the beacon awards now look at exemplary practice in two-tier working and ensuring that developing districts play their part. I am sympathetic to the noble Lord’s amendments, and I hope that I have been able to reassure him about what we want to see and what we expect. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, that the amendments would create a number of very problematic and unnecessary complications for the model, which we want to keep as transparent, effective and simple as possible. The amendments could create gridlock between counties and districts as they fight over targets; and multiple, overlapping and even contradictory agreements in the same county. They would also require the Government to set out in regulations how districts and counties must work together, which we would not want to do in the spirit of the Bill. I hope that that explanation reassures the noble Lord and that he might feel able to withdraw his amendment.