Local Authority Overview and Scrutiny Committees

Yvonne Fovargue Excerpts

Thursday 17th May 2018 Westminster Hall

[Yvonne Fovargue (Makerfield) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Sharma.

I am grateful to my hon. Friends the Members for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts) and for Blaydon (Liz Twist) and the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman), and I bow to their superior experience as councillors. I was a councillor for six years. It is a hard job, and I respect everyone who stands up to represent their community, putting their head above the parapet. I also have experience of the committee and scrutiny systems, and I have to say that as a back-bench councillor I preferred the committee system—I felt that I had more input—but I can see that that might depend on which local authority it is.

Scrutiny has to be a good thing. It is right and proper that the executive are held to account, that thorough assessment is made of whether policies represent real value for money, and that there is ongoing monitoring of how they affect the public. Scrutiny should not just be retrospective; it should also ensure that policy making can be improved. That is how we see scrutiny in Parliament —we hold the Government to account in debates such as this one, for example—and there is some parallel with local government, but sometimes councils do not always give their scrutiny committees the wonderful support and resources that we have in this place for our Select Committees. We have Committee Clerks, training, a wealth of resources and availability of information, which is why Select Committee reports such as the one we are discussing are so highly regarded.

Another issue in local authorities is that party politics can sometimes be more single state. As we know, in some parts of the country the Conservatives dominate, while in others things are the other way around. That is how constituents want it, which is quite right—it is democracy. However, that can have an impact on scrutiny. In some authorities one party sometimes has to hold itself to account, which can make life difficult for individuals. What incentive is there for a back-bench councillor to criticise his or her own ruling executive’s policies? To do so has been described, in some instances, as not a great career move. That is something to think about. Our Select Committees have a mix of Members and some are chaired by the Opposition, so they are truly cross-party, with real legitimacy and standing as a result.

All that means we have to be more nuanced in how we look at local government. One size does not fit all and, as we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield South East, there is the culture. At their best, overview and scrutiny committees should be regarded as constructive, and as a critical friend, but there is a tendency, I fear, for some council leaders to see them as a challenge. That might be because of the political make-up of the council, but it might be an ingrained attitude—the executive makes the decisions, which are made in the best interests of the people, so challenging them is somehow disloyal. The report acknowledges that and points out that the culture at the top determines whether scrutiny is seen as effective.

Culture also determines whether councillors get the correct information to do scrutiny properly. That is a key issue that has been mentioned a number of times. When I was on the scrutiny committee, I had 24-page reports given to me the day before a meeting. I was also doing a full-time job, so that did not encourage effective scrutiny—it was in fact another way of discouraging it, which can be done either by giving no information or by giving so much information, in such detail, that no one reads it.

[Mr Betts]

My hon. Friend makes a good point about how councils work. Their challenge is greater than ours here in the House of Commons, where not only do we have independent Select Committees, but even Government Members are a little more removed from Ministers on a daily basis than councillors are from the cabinet members. Councillors are often in the same room with cabinet members, or part of groups that make the decisions for which cabinet members are responsible, in a way that does not happen in the House. It is a bigger challenge, so getting that culture right is key.

--- Later in debate ---

[Yvonne Fovargue]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend: it is a challenge, but it is one that we must look at. I am pleased that the Government are responding and will produce good practice.

I shall single out two or three of the recommendations. I feel that a statutory scrutiny officer for all councils is fully justified. Yes, councils can make their own choices, but such an appointment at a senior level can only help to raise the standing of scrutiny, prevent it from being marginalised and make suggestions to the executive about how it could work better in future.

I register my support for the scrutiny of local enterprise partnerships. There is much that is wrong with local enterprise partnerships, not least their lack of transparency and accountability. I believe that scrutiny needs to follow the public pound. It should not matter if services are in-house or outsourced through complex partnerships or contracts; the public have a right to know how their money is spent, because they are all taxpayer-funded services. Councils can outsource their services, but not the responsibility for them. Part of that responsibility is allowing them to be scrutinised. I agree with the hon. Member for Harrow East that a lot of other public services affect the local area: the police, the fire brigade and academy schools. They should all be subject to scrutiny, because everything that happens there affects the local resident. Surely, that is what local councils are about: what affects their local residents.

I would like to single out the recommendation to increase the funding for the scrutiny of metro mayors. Perhaps if we had more resources in this regard we would have never had the scenario where the last Mayor of London avoided accountability over the release of funding for the abortive garden bridge, even though the stipulated conditions were not in place for that to happen. Taxpayers have been forced to pick up the £46 million bill.

I thank the Committee for its report, which contains some sensible recommendations. It is a challenge to improve the scrutiny of local authorities, because of their different make-up and how they differ from central Government, but we need to accept that challenge; it is an important function in any democracy. I was impressed by the remark the hon. Member for Harrow East made about putting the oxygen back into scrutiny by engaging the public again. Too often the public elect their councillors and do not think about them again for the next four years. They need to look at the decisions that those councillors make. Scrutiny is an important way that they can be involved in that.