Michael Burton reports from a round-table discussion last week on accountability and partnerships
On a warm afternoon in an ornate room at the Royal Society of Arts in London last week, a distinguished audience of local government luminaries gathered to discuss an increasingly-pressing issue – that of accountability and partnerships.
The seminar was one of a series held by Birmingham University’s new Centre for Public Service Partnerships (see article right).
The discussion was kicked-off by the double act of professors John Stewart and George Jones who, elaborating on an article they wrote for The MJ (10 July), presented a thesis on the dangers of lack of accountability in the era of LSPs and LAAs. Their case was that accountability lines need to be extended to partnerships.
Did the audience agree?
The answers were many and varied and, it is fair to say, generally positive about LSPs and LAAs, less exercised about lack of accountability and generally recognising that to the public, this is an obscure issue. One senior councillor commented: ‘LSPs and LAAs are not an issue on the doorstep’. Another in the audience said: ‘There’s an industry around LAAs and LSPs, but most people aren’t interested.’ Yet a third comment was: ‘The public are not desperately exercised by the accountability issue. They want to see things done.
And we would be remiss if we allowed accountability to get in the way of getting things done.’ And another view: ‘At present, the electorate is uninvolved in this debate.’
Typical of the view that partnerships were a good thing were summed up by one comment: ‘We have to ask ourselves why we have LSPs – because councils were not recognised as place-shapers. LSPs often work because an external partner is at the helm. And LSPs have provided the means by which local authorities can earn the right to be place-shapers.’
Another added: ‘We will never see one organisation managing the whole of the local public realm, which is why we need LSPs.’ Yet another view: ‘LSPs are a positive development for local government.’
Other views expressed from the audience were that partnerships and LSPs need not meet local authority accountability criteria as they were not bodies. ‘Good LSPs are a pact brought together to attack a mutual enemy such as poverty. But they’re not an entity.’
And another view: ‘Public bodies in LSPs have their own democratic accountability. You can’t hold an LSP to account, but you can hold individual members to account. The LSP isn’t a statutory body and doesn’t control resources.’
A further comment was: ‘There are no contracts with LSPs, as they’re all with individual bodies.’
There was also discussion as to whether LAAs were a case of central government imposing its will on councils. But one commentator said it was the opposite: ‘LAAs are a Trojan horse to expand local government’s legitimacy. If the full extent of public spending in an area was fully understood, then the one body shown to have real legitimacy is local government.’
‘Trying to get districts and counties together is like mating pandas – they’re only interested in chewing their own bit of bamboo.’
The seminar was one of a series held by Birmingham University’s new Centre for Public Service Partnerships (see article right).
The discussion was kicked-off by the double act of professors John Stewart and George Jones who, elaborating on an article they wrote for The MJ (10 July), presented a thesis on the dangers of lack of accountability in the era of LSPs and LAAs. Their case was that accountability lines need to be extended to partnerships.
Did the audience agree?
The answers were many and varied and, it is fair to say, generally positive about LSPs and LAAs, less exercised about lack of accountability and generally recognising that to the public, this is an obscure issue. One senior councillor commented: ‘LSPs and LAAs are not an issue on the doorstep’. Another in the audience said: ‘There’s an industry around LAAs and LSPs, but most people aren’t interested.’ Yet a third comment was: ‘The public are not desperately exercised by the accountability issue. They want to see things done.
And we would be remiss if we allowed accountability to get in the way of getting things done.’ And another view: ‘At present, the electorate is uninvolved in this debate.’
Typical of the view that partnerships were a good thing were summed up by one comment: ‘We have to ask ourselves why we have LSPs – because councils were not recognised as place-shapers. LSPs often work because an external partner is at the helm. And LSPs have provided the means by which local authorities can earn the right to be place-shapers.’
Another added: ‘We will never see one organisation managing the whole of the local public realm, which is why we need LSPs.’ Yet another view: ‘LSPs are a positive development for local government.’
Other views expressed from the audience were that partnerships and LSPs need not meet local authority accountability criteria as they were not bodies. ‘Good LSPs are a pact brought together to attack a mutual enemy such as poverty. But they’re not an entity.’
And another view: ‘Public bodies in LSPs have their own democratic accountability. You can’t hold an LSP to account, but you can hold individual members to account. The LSP isn’t a statutory body and doesn’t control resources.’
A further comment was: ‘There are no contracts with LSPs, as they’re all with individual bodies.’
There was also discussion as to whether LAAs were a case of central government imposing its will on councils. But one commentator said it was the opposite: ‘LAAs are a Trojan horse to expand local government’s legitimacy. If the full extent of public spending in an area was fully understood, then the one body shown to have real legitimacy is local government.’
‘Trying to get districts and counties together is like mating pandas – they’re only interested in chewing their own bit of bamboo.’
