Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Bill [HL]

I am very well aware from the debate that this is something that noble Lords opposite want us to think about. As I have said, we are happy to talk about this before Report. However, I should like very briefly to set out what we are trying to achieve. I take the point entirely, and I want to reassure noble Lords that this is not, as they suggest, any attempt to subvert the notion of representative democracy. It is not an attempt to place officers in the front line of debates which would be more properly matters for councillors, and it is not an invitation for public bullying or harassment. It is not a replacement of proper disciplinary procedures by a kangaroo court; there are protections built in. I understand the arguments that the noble Lord made about potentially blurring the lines of accountability. It is absolutely essential that everybody understands that elected members are accountable, just as we are. It is not my civil servants who are accountable; we stand up and it is up to us to defend ourselves. Ultimately, it is citizens’ votes that do that accounting. The provisions in Clause 16 do not undermine that fundamental principle. What we are trying to do is to provide local people with an additional opportunity to participate in the scrutiny of decision-making. The definition of ““public meeting”” to which my noble friend referred is always the same: public meeting means overview and scrutiny committee in that context. There are not two types of public meeting, but I can explain that to him in a letter which he can then hand on to his colleagues. My second point is that, essentially, all these provisions build on existing practice. All principal local authorities have set up overview and scrutiny committees of elected members whose purpose is to hold authority decision makers to account. Clause 16 confers the same public hearing function on overview and scrutiny committees whether or not the council is operating executive arrangements. Subsections (6) to (9) of the clause are complex but they are as they are because they have to cover non-executive as well as executive arrangements. As we know, overview and scrutiny committees meet in public. Rightly and properly, they already have the power to require officers to attend meetings and provide evidence. We built our evidence, for example, around discussions we had with the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives and Senior Managers, SOLACE, which replied to our consultation paper on improving local accountability. It noted that senior officers regularly attend public meetings to explain council decisions and answer questions. I shall give a few examples. Tewkesbury Borough Council’s scrutiny committee reviews best value performance indicators and quarterly requires managers to attend meetings; West Devon Borough Council requires lead officers to turn up alongside committee chairs if progress on performance indicators is unsatisfactory; and so on. We are building on established practice and taking it further. Citizens will be able to call in their petitions for overview and scrutiny committees to look at issues which are important to them and to ask for evidence from key officers to inform their examination of those issues.