Local Audit and Accountability Bill [Lords]

Lindsay Hoyle Excerpts

Tuesday 17th December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Andy Sawford (Corby) (Lab/Co-op)]

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

New clause 2—Transparency of audit—

‘(1) A local auditor has a right of access at all reasonable times to audit documents from private companies to whom the local authority has contracted significant services during the last financial year.

(2) Local auditors only have a right of access to audit documents from private companies, under subsection (1), that relate to the service provided to the local authority by that company.

(3) A local auditor must make available on request any audit documents, obtained under subsection (1), subject to the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

(4) In this section “private company” shall be interpreted to mean any legal entity, including joint ventures, not-for-profit organisations, mutually-held organisations and charities.

(5) Five years after the coming into force of this section, the Secretary of State must commission and publish a review of the effectiveness of subsections (1) to (3) and of the costs to local auditors, private companies and local authorities arising from it.

(6) The meaning of “significant” and “terms of qualification” shall be set out by regulations.’.

New clause 4—Scrutiny—

‘Before section 1 of this Act is brought into force, the Secretary of State shall prepare and lay before each House of Parliament a report on the effectiveness, efficiency and economy of the structures and procedures put in place by relevant local authorities, under section 21 of the Local Government Act 2000 (Overview and scrutiny committees), to review the decisions made, or other action taken, by the executives of such local authorities.’.

New clause 5—Fraud investigation—

‘Before section 1 of this Act is brought into force, the Secretary of State shall prepare and lay before each House of Parliament a report on the adequacy of the resources, staffing, structures and procedures put in place by authorities to detect and investigate fraud within the authority effectively.’.

New clause 6—Compromise agreements—

‘Before section 1 of this Act is brought into force, the Secretary of State shall prepare and lay before each House of Parliament a report into the extent and appropriateness of the use of compromise agreements, incorporating confidentiality clauses, as provided for by section 203 of the Employment Rights Act 1996, to effect the exit of members of staff from employment by local authorities.’.

Government amendment 1.

Amendment 13, in clause 20, page 15, line 24, at end insert—

‘(7) A person providing commercial or consultancy services to an authority may not audit those services.

(8) The audit of any commercial or consultancy services provided by a person appointed as a local auditor must be subcontracted to a different local auditor.’.

Government amendments 2 and 3.

Amendment 12, in schedule 2, page 43, line 8, at end insert—

30 A Local Enterprise Partnership.’.

Government amendments 4 and 5.

[Andy Sawford]

I shall speak to new clauses 1 and 2.

This is a better Bill for the scrutiny that it has received as a result of the work of the draft Bill Committee, the Communities and Local Government Committee and the House of Lords, and in Committee in this House, where I was pleased to receive substantial reassurances from the Minister, clarifications and explanations on many points. Some welcome concessions have been made, both during the Committee stage and in some of the amendments before us today.

Three years ago in a press release the Government announced the abolition of the Audit Commission, without thinking it through. There has been considerable criticism of the fact that there was no real consultation with local government, and when the announcement was made prematurely, the audit world was not consulted on how the new arrangements might evolve. That has led to a range of problems in the Bill. It is very much a backward-looking piece of legislation that seeks to post-rationalise a premature announcement that took most people by surprise.

The Audit Commission was abolished without proper consideration of how to maintain some of its more valuable functions, such as enabling local authorities to make comparisons and to use benchmarking tools to see whether they are spending the public pound as well as possible, and acting as an independent auditor, to bring transparency and public confidence to public audit. The Government had not thought through crucial issues such as how to maintain independence of audit, which we will come to later, without amendments to increase transparency, particularly new clause 2.

The Government had overestimated and double-counted the savings that may accrue. They had failed properly to address concerns that the audit market for local government is too limited. However, there is a bright spot. The Government’s reluctant U-turn on joint procurement is very much to be welcomed. It follows submissions from my noble Friends in the House of Lords and from the Local Government Association, the National Association of Local Councils and many other bodies. We tabled amendments in Committee to allow local authorities to form a joint procurement body, and we were pleased when, towards the end of the Committee stage, the Government introduced, albeit through gritted teeth, a new clause to do just that. The Government have not been clear about who will lead the development of that joint procurement body, but I urge them to work closely with the Local Government Association, the principal representative body for local government.

New clause 1 seeks to enable auditors to follow the public pound through the system. It would require the Secretary of State to make arrangements for integrated audit so that auditors can work across local authorities, and other relevant authorities at a local level, and with the National Audit Office where national and local funding is being used jointly. The problem that the new clause aims to solve is that the audit arrangements set out in the Bill are too narrowly focused on the relevant authority as a self-contained unit.

The Government have therefore failed to provide for the changing world of public services. Shared services, community budgets, which both they and the Opposition strongly support and which local authorities across the country—notably, many Labour councils—are taking forward, and combined authorities are all part of a shift towards much stronger partnership working by local authorities. There is also a specific point about local enterprise partnerships that I will come to later.

The previous Labour Government introduced the Total Place initiative in their last years in office. By enabling authorities to join together for some parts of their audit, we hope that we can see the value for money of the Total Place approach and that that will be a spur to further joining up. By bringing the National Audit Office into that approach to integrated joint audit, we can follow the public pound up and down the system for local and national spend.

The new clause is about future-proofing the Bill. In Committee the Government resisted all attempts to reference integrated audit or community budgeting approaches. In that sense, I think that the Bill will lead to an atomised approach to auditing, rather than a connected view. It has completely failed to make provision for the new world of public service delivery being built before our eyes, and not just the changes in local authorities that I have identified, but wider changes such as the troubled families programme and welfare changes, particularly the introduction of universal credit. They are all looking at connecting spending across the country. It is astonishing that the world of audit envisaged by the Bill takes no account of that at all.

We now have city deals, which should be properly audited. Indeed, we explored in Committee how they and other bodies, particularly those focused on enterprise partnerships and working with business, might be audited when it is not possible to bring together different auditors. As community budgets develop, different auditors will examine the use of the local government pound while the National Audit Office examines the use of the Whitehall pound, although they are actually being spent together. If a service is shared and common, surely it makes sense that the audit should be, too.

Another example is health and social care—the subject of the legislation we debated only yesterday. We need to see the future of the health service as one in which we meet the challenges of a rising elderly population, with people living longer and more independently. Local authorities, through their social care role, and health bodies will work jointly. Indeed, there are significant moves in that direction through local health and wellbeing boards. It would make sense for audit to be able to follow that pattern of more joint services.

Parliament has a strong interest in seeing that public money is spent well, whether nationally or locally. That was the drive behind Lord Heseltine’s introduction of the Audit Commission all those years ago. Parliament previously drew some assurance from the Audit Commission’s national work on value for money, but that work is winding down and the value for money assurances offered in the Bill are very limited. Indeed, we sought clarification on those points in Committee, and we had some reassurances from the Minister, but they were not sufficient for us to believe that that work will be carried out in the way it ought to be.

That point becomes increasingly relevant as Government policy cuts across departmental silos as fresh patterns of local delivery develop and local authorities commission services from, and develop partnerships with, an ever wider range of providers. The ad hoc Bill Committee that scrutinised the draft Local Audit Bill was absolutely right to state that the Bill should provide an unambiguous basis for insight into spend across central and local government, but as it stands it does not. Would it not be sensible—I ask this again in the hope that the Minister will change his mind at the eleventh hour—in the management of audit contracts if two authorities working together substantially and significantly could appoint a lead audit for a particular set of services, rather than having two separate auditors crawling over the same books and duplicating how they look at the same services, perhaps even reaching different conclusions?

We would rather have auditors work together to reach a shared view on whether services represent value for money and whether public money is being spent effectively, so an audit presented to a relevant authority might contain sections that had been prepared jointly and appropriately with other auditors of local spend, perhaps those from other relevant authorities or the National Audit Office. That audit would then be much more valuable, and not only to the council, but to the public and Parliament, in showing whether money was being spent well. For example, in my area there is an arrangement for shared services between Northamptonshire and Cambridgeshire county councils. There are questions about whether that genuinely delivers value for money. I am concerned that an audit in which they are each treated entirely separately and reported on separately will not give us a real sense of whether the partnership is delivering the value for money that I and my constituents want to see.

I therefore appeal to the Minister to have a change of heart. He is a former council leader. He might well return to local government after the next election or at some future time, when I am sure he would be very grateful that the Government had created audit arrangements fit for the new world of local government, not the old one.

This might be the most appropriate time to refer to amendment 12, which seeks to add local enterprise partnerships to the list of relevant authorities set out in schedule 2. LEPs have a growing role in the local public sector and partnership landscape. They are charged with driving local economic growth. From next year their role will increase, as they will be tasked with developing investment strategies for European structural funds; looking after skills for employment; leading on community-led local development; taking on board economic and social inclusion; looking at environment and climate change issues in local communities; taking forward social innovation, ICT and digital inclusion; and tackling youth unemployment. Indeed, the Government seem to view LEPs as a panacea for how many areas of local public service reform, enterprise and regeneration will be taken forward.

However, since the establishment of LEPs three years ago, and particularly following the publication of Lord Heseltine’s report “No Stone Unturned”, while their remit has expanded dramatically and the roles and responsibilities of their boards have changed, there has not been a commensurate consideration by the Government of how to address the governance, capacity, audit and probity of LEPs.

From next year, LEPs will receive central Government money, including a share of the £6 billion from the European regional development fund, a share of the £24 million growth money from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, a share of the £2 billion from the 2015 Treasury allocation for which LEPs can bid, and a share of the £400 million top-slicing of the new homes bonus, which is very controversial with local authorities, which are concerned about the implications of that top-slicing. As LEPs take responsibility for funding streams from several Departments and agencies, it is clear that there will be no effective audit trail to account for how the money will be spent. The truth is that LEPs are not really accountable to anyone.

In Committee my hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham (Roberta Blackman-Woods) asked the Minister to set out how he envisages LEPs being audited in future. Given that they are responsible for such significant amounts of public money, and given the pace of change in LEPs across the country, the Minister’s response was simply inadequate. He could make a simple amendment to schedule 2 that would allow us to treat LEPs as a relevant local authority so that not only can we look at the local spend, but we can consider how the national spend will be accounted for as it goes into those LEPs in a way that does not mean having to look at the separate audits of a whole range of different Departments and agencies. If the Minister is not minded to accept our amendment to schedule 2, that could be addressed by simply accepting new clause 1, which would allow integrated audit, because LEPs are precisely the kind of area where integrated audit is much needed. Whether he chooses to accept new clause 1 or the amendment to allow a change to schedule 2—we hope he will accept one of them—we hope that we see a significant change in the confidence that we and the public have in how LEPs work.

LEPs are a mixture of the public and private sectors, so they are a different kind of organisation. Many public sector bodies are involved in them. For example, there are two LEPs operating across the area I represent, with different types of authorities in a two-tier area, so they are quite complex. Just saying, as the Minister did in Committee, that auditing the money for which LEPs are responsible will be done by that disparate set of audits by component bodies is just not good enough. I strongly urge him to rethink that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Williamson (Derby North) (Lab)]

I rise to support the shadow Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Corby (Andy Sawford), on new clauses 1 and 2. To some extent, we rehearsed the arguments in Committee, when the matter was considered in some detail. The Minister and his colleagues were singularly unconvincing in their opposition to our proposals, but I hope that, having had time to reflect on those discussions and the contributions of my hon. Friends today, the Minister will accept our reasonable new clauses.

On new clause 1, considerable amounts of local and national funding are now used jointly. It therefore seems appropriate that they are subject to proper scrutiny and auditing arrangements. To argue against that is unacceptable. It is incumbent on the Government to ensure that funding is subject to proper scrutiny after deployment, particularly at a time when significant austerity and swingeing funding cuts have been imposed on public services, especially local government. They must ensure that we get the maximum benefit for the public pound in communities up and down the country. I hope the Minister will concede that the arguments that have been made are persuasive, and I hope that the Government will respond accordingly.

On new clause 2, it seems appropriate that proper measures are put in place to ensure that we do not end up with a cosy relationship between auditors and local authorities. There is a real danger of that, particularly as the Audit Commission is to be abolished. There could be significantly increased opportunities for corruption and the misuse of public funds. We could find situations such as the infamous “homes for votes” scandal involving Westminster council and Shirley Porter—or maybe we would not find out about them. Without new clause 2, they would be more difficult to uncover, so there might be more such examples around the country, which would be extremely regrettable.

In the case of that Conservative-controlled council in Westminster, we saw more than just the “homes for votes” scandal. We know from the records of officers who were employed there at the time that the council leader, Shirley Porter, bullied officers, and that anybody who had the temerity to question her direction of travel was slapped down in no uncertain terms. They were told, “You’re not one of us”, or “You are a negative officer and you need to decide which side you are on.” That was totally unacceptable behaviour by the leader of a council, and I fear that such behaviour is likely to increase if new clause 2 is not accepted.

As I said, it was not just the “homes for votes” scandal. Shirley Porter rose to notoriety when she sold three cemeteries in London for redevelopment for 5p each—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. As interesting as this may be, we are discussing audit. I know that the subject of Dame Shirley Porter may create some interest, but we have to try to stick to the new clauses and amendments. We are drifting a little wide of them. I am sure the hon. Gentleman is desperate to get back on track.

[Chris Williamson]

Indeed I am, Mr Deputy Speaker, and I am grateful for your guidance. I was just about to conclude my remarks about Shirley Porter by saying that she privatised at will, as well.

In Committee, we heard a lot from the Minister about his commitment to transparency. His Back-Bench colleagues reinforced that point. However, the Bill will make transparency considerably more difficult, because arrangements within local authorities will be considerably more opaque. Transparency International, which my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) quoted, was scathing about the Bill, stating:

“The range of measures outlined in this Bill, combined with recent legislative reforms under the Localism Act 2011, remove key institutional defences against corruption, replacing them with arrangements that are likely to be inadequate to protect the public interest and the public purse.”

We hear a lot from the Government about their concerns for the public purse and the need to ensure that the taxpayer gets value for money, yet it seems that, unless they accept our new clauses, they are being cavalier with the public purse in this case.

I hope that the Minister will reflect on what has been said today. Unless the new auditing arrangements are subject to freedom of information provisions, their opacity will grow. I do not want to strain your patience too much, Mr Deputy Speaker, but circumstances such as the Shirley Porter case will not be uncovered. It is essential that new clause 2, tabled by my hon. Friends the Members for Corby and for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham), is accepted; otherwise private sector audit companies will not be subject to the scrutiny that was previously available under the Audit Commission arrangements. Even when there were external auditors, the information that they held was deemed to be held by the Audit Commission and was therefore subject to scrutiny by the general public. My hon. Friends and I say that it is important that proper scrutiny is still available under the new arrangements. As we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Corby, local enterprise partnerships are now also spending considerable sums of money.

--- Later in debate ---

[Hon. Members]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. Interventions need to be shorter, but I certainly do not need instruction from Back Benchers.

[Brandon Lewis]

As I said, the Freedom of Information Act applies to local authorities, but we are not extending it to cover private companies. I am happy categorically to make the point, as I did in Committee, as the hon. Gentleman will see if he looks in Hansard, that we are not going to extend the provision to private companies; it is the local authority that will be accountable. He will have to take that as outlined.

We will issue a revised code of practice encouraging public authorities to include and enforce provisions in contracts to ensure that openness and accountability are maintained by encouraging the release of a wider range of information about contract delivery. This approach will be monitored by the Government and the Information Commissioner. If contractors or public authorities do not comply with this guidance, the Government will consider what other mechanisms might be necessary, including the possible extension of the Freedom of Information Act to service providers.