Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what steps she is taking to ensure that local authorities are subject to independent review and inspection.

This Government is committed to resetting the relationship between local and regional government to establish partnerships built on mutual respect, genuine collaboration and meaningful engagement. We are keen to work with any local authorities facing challenges to support recovery and reform.

As part of the sector support programme the ministry funds the Local Government Association (LGA) to deliver a Corporate Peer Challenge (CPC) review programme. Local authorities are subject to scrutiny from a number of government bodies, including inspectorates and ombudsmen. External audit is also important, which is why, on 30 July, the Government announced measures to tackle the local audit backlog we inherited. We will also update the House in the autumn on longer-term plans to fix the local audit system.

It is important that Government can act where local authorities may need more intensive support or intervention in order to meet their Best Value Duty. The Secretary of State has a set of tools and statutory powers, detailed in the statutory guidance ‘Best value standards and intervention’. This includes a statutory power to commission inspections of local authorities in relation to their compliance with the Best Value Duty. Decisions about statutory inspections are taken based on the circumstances of each case following an evidence based assessment.