Local Authorities (Cumbria)

Robert Neill Excerpts

Wednesday 11th July 2012 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Robert Neill)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Weir. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Carlisle (John Stevenson) on securing the debate and on giving us the opportunity to debate local government structure in Cumbria. I am grateful to the hon. Members for Copeland (Mr Reed) and for Workington (Sir Tony Cunningham), who intervened during his speech.

I very much sympathise with many of the sentiments and views expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Carlisle. Like him, my background is in local government. I spent some 16 years as a councillor in a London borough and another eight or more on what we would regard as a top-tier authority, so I understand the point that he makes. The Government recognise the importance of effective local government and how it can significantly contribute to economic growth in the local economy. I recognise the importance not only of delivering local services in the most effective and efficient way, but of effective local leadership—both officer and member leadership. Sweeping away the unnecessary bureaucratic controls, regulations and processes that could lead to over-government and stifle initiative and growth is also important.

I part company with my hon. Friend on the belief that changing the structure is the answer. Having looked at, and on one occasion lived with, local government reform and restructuring in London, I do not believe that the cost, disruption and delay, which attended past attempts at enforced unitary reorganisation, are justified. It is not the right means to deal with the problem that he identifies.

[Mr Reed]

Although I have sympathy with the case made by the hon. Member for Carlisle (John Stevenson), I agree that now is not the time for local government reorganisation in Cumbria, given the huge costs necessarily involved at a time of financial distress for local government, not only in Cumbria, but across the country.

I would like the Minister to take on board the fact that, when the previous Government tried to address local government reorganisation in Cumbria last time, the proposal failed due to the national strategic interests in Cumbria, principally those surrounding the nuclear industry in west Cumbria and my constituency. That needs to be addressed. There were doubts about what might happen to the nuclear industry under a unitary Cumbrian authority. I ask him to bear those considerations in mind.

[Robert Neill]

I am happy to do so. It is a perfectly fair point; we cannot look purely at narrow structural issues in isolation from the impact that a local authority has on the wider community and economy or the national and sub-national considerations that flow from it. I therefore agree with that proposition.

The Government do not intend to instigate centrally imposed local government reorganisation, but reform and change are necessary. We should concentrate on how local government works and delivers the services that residents need. That is where we could fruitfully apply our minds and our time, and it can best be delivered in today’s circumstances of dealing with economic growth, with the financial constraints facing us and with the pressure on public finances. That points clearly to councils working closely together when that makes sense, as it often does. I accept that the boundaries may often be somewhat artificial when looked at in the economic context or in terms of the practical geography of delivery for some types of service. It is not necessary to change the boundaries and the names on the map to achieve such aims.

We should encourage local authorities to work more and more together, to pool and share their staff and their buildings and to discharge their functions jointly with other councils and other public service providers. Much work has already been done on community budget pilots and how a multi-agency approach can deliver better public services for us.

[John Stevenson]

I understand the Minister’s argument, and I sympathise with it. If councils work together, savings can undoubtedly be made and local government can be more efficient, but what happens when councils do not agree and are unwilling to co-operate?

--- Later in debate ---

[Robert Neill]

First, increasingly that culture is changing. Secondly, the Government have made it clear that, when we look at how we finance local government in future, innovative councils will benefit because those that seek to attract economic growth to their areas and to make homes provision and so on will benefit through business rates retention and the new homes bonus. Often, it makes good sense to work jointly together. There is an obligation on councils to work together to prepare their planning policies under the duty to co-operate, so there are specific levers to give a firm nudge to local authorities to co-operate.

In most parts of the country, electors will be able to see authorities not far away and sometimes of different political persuasions working jointly together. My Conservative-controlled London borough had some joint working with the Labour-controlled council in Lewisham. Party politics need not get in the way. It is the mindset that is important, and we must all work to change that. That is the way forward, and separate chief executives, separate legal payrolls and so on are not necessary.

An example close to here is Westminster council, Kensington and Chelsea council and Hammersmith and Fulham council, which have pioneered a radical approach whereby they share all their services. They still have individual councillors with democratic accountability, but all their services are effectively now being shared and are delivering efficiencies of about £100 million every year. It is called the tri-borough approach, and it can be, and is being, adapted in rural areas. I suggest that that model is the way forward.

Since March 2010, East Devon district council has been sharing a chief executive with South Somerset district council, and they are looking to expand that sharing process. Significantly, that collaboration is across a county boundary. An enforced unitary arrangement in the county would not have helped their situation and would have been needlessly constraining. It indicates that where there is a will for authorities to collaborate, they can achieve real savings. We are seeing that in many places. Sharing senior staff, as well as back-office staff, shows that more can be done for less, and such an approach can work with the business community, which is important. That is why it is important to ensure that local economic partnerships work effectively and efficiently. We must continue to ensure that that is delivered.

Such innovation does not need permission from central Government. It does not have to wait for us to say so. Given the new general power of competence under the Localism Act 2011, councils have the ability to do that without reference to central Government. I agree with the point made by the hon. Members for Workington and for Copeland that, whatever the form of the arrangements, they should be locally developed and locally owned to meet the specific needs of local areas. The right way forward is for councils to consider what is best for their residents, rather than preserving the current means of doing things and the institutional interest in any area.

[Mr Reed]

The Minister is being very patient and accommodating with his time. On the point that he raised earlier, will he undertake to write to me about the prospects of business rates from the nuclear industry going to my local authority?

The hon. Member for Carlisle mentioned the effectiveness of local government. The system that we have in Cumbria severely impinges on the effectiveness of our local government structure, and whatever our political persuasion, we would all like to make that work better now, in advance of any future reorganisation. How can the Government help us to ensure that local government is more effective, particularly, as I said, in education?

[Robert Neill]

We will consult on further technical details about the operation of the business rates retention scheme in the summer, and I will, of course, write to the hon. Gentleman. Improving ways of working together does not always require a central Government intervention. The Local Government Association has done a lot of pioneering peer-improvement work within the sector, and there are many examples, including in other parts of the north-west, of experienced members and chief officers going in to mentor and encourage joint working.

I hope that the authorities in Cumbria will look at the opportunities that are open to them and that people are benefiting from elsewhere. That will require a cultural change in the way of thinking, and that is sometimes the biggest challenge to get over. I think that there is a way to achieve that objective without the up-front costs and potential disruption of enforced reorganisation. There are also opportunities where councils come together and form a joint authority that is responsible for certain services. The obvious example, although in a more urban context, is Greater Manchester, which deals with transport and related issues. It is a combined authority that has voluntarily pooled a measure of sovereignty. It is driven from the bottom up and locally owned, and that is its advantage.

I accept that there can be arguments for the merger of districts within a two-tier system, but again we would regard anything in that direction as having to be locally driven. If local authorities—this has been mooted in some parts of the country—want to come together voluntarily, that would be a different consideration from our imposing it from above, provided that there was clear evidence of public support and that it could demonstrate that it represents value for money and would result in better services for local people.

There are ways in which we can deal with the situation as it is. Reference was made to the number of councillors, and I will touch on that issue by saying that local government electoral arrangements, which include the number of councillors on a council, are the responsibility of the Local Government Boundary Commission and are not something that the House has decided should be in the Government’s hands. The commission is responsible directly to Parliament for its work. There are circumstances in which local authorities can request a review of their arrangements, and the Local Government Boundary Commission, which is well staffed and expert in these matters, is always willing to talk to local authorities in such situations.

Having looked at everything in the round, I hope that our arrangements will enable the legitimate objectives, which my hon. Friend the Member for Carlisle rightly seeks to achieve, to be met without the consequences that flow from an imposed top-down approach that is not consistent with the spirit of localism. I submit that he and I were both elected on that issue in our manifestos, and I hope that localism is generally accepted as the right approach across the House.