Northamptonshire County Council

Earl of Listowel Excerpts

Tuesday 27th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Listowel (CB)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating the Statement and declare my interest as a vice-chair of the Local Government Association. I have listened to this very troubling and sad case, which is probably harming the vulnerable children and elderly most of all by its failings. Can he assure me that there are robust mechanisms in place to support councils which are struggling early on, so that we do not get into these situations? In the education system, there was the Greater Manchester Challenge and the London Challenge, where schools got together and poorer functioning schools were supported by experienced heads to get better outcomes for the struggling schools. Is there such a system in the local government framework, particularly for councillors, who have huge responsibilities but may have no experience of social care or finance before arriving in post? Are there robust systems to ensure that they get the right support at the beginning to be able to give the best?

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

I thank the noble Earl for those points. First, interventions can and do happen. This is not the first intervention in local government services: there have been others for other reasons—Rotherham, Doncaster, Hull and so on. Naturally, any Government would be loath—that might not be too strong a word, but certainly wary—to intervene because of the importance of local government being just that. Of course, there are checks and balances within the local government system operating properly. There is proper scrutiny and there are proper balances. As I think I said on a previous Statement on Northamptonshire, we have looked carefully to see whether any other local authority is remotely in the same position and satisfied ourselves that there is not, but that is something that we obviously keep under careful scrutiny and review.

I also say—and should have said earlier in response to points made by the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, in particular—that there will be regular reporting to the Secretary of State by any commissioners who are appointed to ensure that the correct procedures are instituted and proper progress made by those commissioners.