Northamptonshire County Council

Lord Scriven Excerpts

Tuesday 6th February 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, my noble friend is right that the leader took that initiative to initiate the peer review. Peer reviews are important across the piece, and the LGA receives roughly £21 million so that that can happen. She certainly deserves congratulations on that. As I say, the peer review found that there were governance issues such as a lack of transparency, no culture of challenge and so on. The comments made by the peer review are important in looking at what has gone wrong in Northamptonshire. As I say, there is also a best-value inspection going on, which will report on 16 March. Clearly, we cannot comment on that while it is under way.

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as a member of Sheffield City Council and a vice-chair of the LGA. The Minister just said from the Dispatch Box that no other councils are near to going over the cliff edge. The Local Government Association produced a report at the end of 2017 which said that by 2020, if the financial crisis for local government is not solved, up to half of local authorities will go over the cliff edge of not being able to pay for non-statutory services. Will he reflect on the Statement he has just made and take a deep look at the financial crisis that many local authorities find themselves in across the country?

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, the noble Lord’s statement, as he will see when he re-reads it, is based on a hypothesis—“if something happens, and then if something else happens”. I am merely reflecting the current position and cannot speculate about what might happen in two to three years’ time. That will clearly be a different situation and, as I indicated, this is something we keep under review. But at the moment, this is the sole authority in this position. These are unique circumstances, partly financial and partly about governance. I wanted to provide that reassurance to the House.