Local Authorities (Contracting Out of Tax Billing, Collection and Enforcement Functions) (Amendment) (England) Order 2013

Debate between Lord Shipley and Baroness Smith of Basildon

Thursday 28th February 2013 Grand Committee

[Lord Shipley]

My Lords, first, I declare my interest as a vice-president of the Local Government Association. I shall comment on this one and on the next, too, so I need speak only once.

I have a desire for a reassurance that in all the contracting out of existing functions of local authorities, whether they have been previously contracted out or may be in future, exactly the same standards will apply on matters concerning data protection and in the duties, obligations and service standards of those to whom work is contracted out. I am thinking in particular of the role of bailiffs and what standards of service they will be required to work to. There has been a discussion and things have been done about this in the past year or two, but I seek the Minister’s assurance that exactly those same standards, or perhaps even better standards, will apply in future.

[Baroness Smith of Basildon]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, for speaking before me, because it has reminded me to say that I am also a vice-president of the Local Government Association, which I may have forgotten otherwise. The points that he made are ones that I would also have wished to make, and I will not repeat them. I refer particularly to the point on bailiffs, which was very well made, and I look forward to hearing the response from the Minister. I will come back to the freedom of information point.

I thank the Minister for her explanation, as it was good to have such a detailed explanation of the instruments. It answered a couple of the questions that I have, although I have others. Obviously, we support measures that would prevent fraud, detect it and take action against it, and any system of enforcement should be effective and fair. We entirely concur with those principles. My questions are on points of clarity, because I was not 100% clear. Legislation can sometimes be opaque, and it would be helpful to have some more information.

As the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, was saying, when services are contracted out, particularly in this case, very detailed confidential financial information can be provided to a private company or organisation. I understand that under data protection legislation, the responsibility would remain with the local authority, but would the DCLG give any guidance to local authorities on how they may enforce their responsibilities to organisations to which they have contracted out those services? What redress would remain available to an individual who felt that their confidentiality had been breached in any way? Would that remain a matter for the local authority, or would responsibility lie with the company that held the information and had inadvertently or wrongly released it?