The Local Government Bill, with its emphasis on more competition, could leave councils just as commissioning bodies if shared services contracts become the norm, warns Unison leader, Dave Prentis.
With its emphasis on shared services, and moving local control towards Local Strategic Partnerships, question marks are already circling as to how the Local Government Bill will mean more accountability and better public services.
The Bill raises citizenship and efficiency as its two central tenets, but as with most paperwork, the devil is in the detail.
Attempts to engage both voters and taxpayers in municipal life are to be welcomed.
Likewise, simplifying electoral arrangements by enabling councils to adopt all-out elections every four years and single member wards appear logical.
But rehashed proposals to push councils to implement a strong leader or executive mayor raise concerns beyond the legions of emasculated, elected back-bench councillors, who have genuinely struggled in the shadow of this manifest power disparity since it first got the green light in 2000.
Unison is asking standing committee MPs, currently going through the Bill with a fine toothcomb, to beef up the powers of local scrutiny committees and give them the right to also hold any private company, or organisation which might be subcontracted to provide a council service, to account by elected members.
As the Bill already sits, the enhanced scrutiny committees, with a requirement of Local Strategic Partnerships to demonstrate public involvement, and health sector links for patient and public participation, mean there are potentially-promising new channels of community political influence.
However, with year-on-year efficiency cuts demanded from the Government, time and money staff could allocate to nurturing such community channels may be restricted.
Efficiency is the other central tenet of the Bill. While few people can disagree with ‘efficiency’ as a sound objective, councils have been pushed from a quite reasonable path that expects sound housekeeping, to the dangerously-unaccountable route where councils can literally become just commissioning bodies.
Now, public bodies, which are both service commissioners and providers, are expected to maintain ‘competitive neutrality’, so they do not favour their own service provision over prospective private, community or voluntary sector competition.
Councils should test the performance of their services in comparison with others. ‘When services are found to be underperforming, where practical, they should introduce fair and open competition,’ last year’s the White Paper stated.
The Bill expects efficiencies to be achieved through shared services – a combination of local councils or public bodies amalgamating together to form an organisation, or hire a company, to deliver a public service.
Both NHS trusts and local councils are being told to actively create markets for suppliers. And central government is hiring consultancy companies to drive forward commissioning and flatten the existing barriers to marketisation.
Can it be right that a community, and its elected representatives, should have their hands tied by the missives of outside consultants, whose interests are best served unlocking and ‘managing’ even more marketisation?
Such questions need to be asked urgently by MPs as they scrutinise the legislation.
Even though there are question marks arising as to the accountability of the bigger public bodies (LSPs) deployed to manage the synthesis of councils, health trusts, police and passenger transport authorities and the like.
But citizenship and efficiency are the goals at the heart of the Bill. Yet the Government’s preferred route enshrined in the Bill – via marketisation and shared services – risks leading local councils down a highly-expensive and bureaucratic sidetrack for years to come. n
Dave Prentis is general secretary of Unison
The Bill raises citizenship and efficiency as its two central tenets, but as with most paperwork, the devil is in the detail.
Attempts to engage both voters and taxpayers in municipal life are to be welcomed.
Likewise, simplifying electoral arrangements by enabling councils to adopt all-out elections every four years and single member wards appear logical.
But rehashed proposals to push councils to implement a strong leader or executive mayor raise concerns beyond the legions of emasculated, elected back-bench councillors, who have genuinely struggled in the shadow of this manifest power disparity since it first got the green light in 2000.
Unison is asking standing committee MPs, currently going through the Bill with a fine toothcomb, to beef up the powers of local scrutiny committees and give them the right to also hold any private company, or organisation which might be subcontracted to provide a council service, to account by elected members.
As the Bill already sits, the enhanced scrutiny committees, with a requirement of Local Strategic Partnerships to demonstrate public involvement, and health sector links for patient and public participation, mean there are potentially-promising new channels of community political influence.
However, with year-on-year efficiency cuts demanded from the Government, time and money staff could allocate to nurturing such community channels may be restricted.
Efficiency is the other central tenet of the Bill. While few people can disagree with ‘efficiency’ as a sound objective, councils have been pushed from a quite reasonable path that expects sound housekeeping, to the dangerously-unaccountable route where councils can literally become just commissioning bodies.
Now, public bodies, which are both service commissioners and providers, are expected to maintain ‘competitive neutrality’, so they do not favour their own service provision over prospective private, community or voluntary sector competition.
Councils should test the performance of their services in comparison with others. ‘When services are found to be underperforming, where practical, they should introduce fair and open competition,’ last year’s the White Paper stated.
The Bill expects efficiencies to be achieved through shared services – a combination of local councils or public bodies amalgamating together to form an organisation, or hire a company, to deliver a public service.
Both NHS trusts and local councils are being told to actively create markets for suppliers. And central government is hiring consultancy companies to drive forward commissioning and flatten the existing barriers to marketisation.
Can it be right that a community, and its elected representatives, should have their hands tied by the missives of outside consultants, whose interests are best served unlocking and ‘managing’ even more marketisation?
Such questions need to be asked urgently by MPs as they scrutinise the legislation.
Even though there are question marks arising as to the accountability of the bigger public bodies (LSPs) deployed to manage the synthesis of councils, health trusts, police and passenger transport authorities and the like.
But citizenship and efficiency are the goals at the heart of the Bill. Yet the Government’s preferred route enshrined in the Bill – via marketisation and shared services – risks leading local councils down a highly-expensive and bureaucratic sidetrack for years to come. n
Dave Prentis is general secretary of Unison
