District Councils
Debate between Mark Pawsey and David Drew
Mark Pawsey
I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention and for his contribution to the report. He is entirely right. We identified all sorts of valuable arrangements in taking evidence, and he gives a good example. It is important to realise that the examples of collaboration that I gave from my district council are very much with authorities that are immediately adjacent, but we also discovered great working in authorities that may be some distance apart but perhaps share common issues and common problems. My hon. Friend picks those issues out very well.
Our third recommendation is that district councils should be empowered to produce a local governance framework policy to identify a shared vision of collaboration and an agreed set of priorities for public services within the district. Our fourth recommendation is that there should be no legal restrictions on districts regarding the partner organisations they choose to negotiate with. I just mentioned that they may be some distance apart geographically.
Dr David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op)
As a supporter of district councils, I am delighted by the hon. Gentleman’s remarks. Does he agree that one of the ways in which this could be helped is by freeing up some of the housing activities that district councils perform, whereby they could be part of the solution to the housing crisis?
Mark Pawsey
District councils’ housing authorities have a big role to play in bringing forward additional housing. We need district councils to work more effectively with other agencies to identify land to bring forward for development. There are many ways in which district councils can work more collaboratively, both with one another and with other agencies, many of which will be landowners.
Our fifth recommendation is that the framework of devolution should permit district councils to develop and propose devolution deals to Government at any stage. District councils have a big role to play in devolution. Our sixth recommendation is that district councils should encourage their overview and scrutiny committees to review the opportunities for collaboration. That should be happening on a proactive basis. I look forward to the Minister’s response to our recommendations.
We launched our report in Parliament some months ago, when we were delighted to be joined by the Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, my hon. Friend the hon. Member for Nuneaton (Mr Jones), who committed to taking our recommendations back to the Department. I look forward to the Minister perhaps bringing us an update on where his Department stands regarding some of the recommendations that we have made.