Schedule 5 - CHAI: supplementary
Health and Social Care (Community Health and Standards) Bill
2:30 pm
Mr David Lammy (Parliamentary Secretary, Department of Health; Tottenham, Labour)
This is another first for me. It is my first afternoon sitting as a Minister in Committee and I am very pleased to be here under your chairmanship, Mr. Atkinson.
I should like to address the points made by the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Mr. Burstow). This morning I was anxious to convey our concern that the clause as drafted gives unintentionally the impression that the chief executive is solely responsible for the exercise of the commission's functions. In fact, we wish to give the commission the discretion to decide how the respective responsibilities of the chair, the chief executive and the commissioners should be divided. The amendment seeks to avoid such a misunderstanding.
The distinction between the roles remains, but the Government take the view—the hon. Gentleman will agree on reflection—that CHAI should decide how it divides the responsibilities for its functions; the Government do not want to prescribe that. In some non-departmental public bodies, the chair exercises some executive functions in his arrangement with the chief executive and the management of that body. In others, the chair is concerned only with governance.
The new inspectorate is high-powered, with high-powered roles and high-powered salaries. It is important that it be independent; it must decide how it demarcates its powers, although loosely within the arrangements whereby the chair is responsible for governance and the chief executive is responsible for the executive and management functions. There should be nothing worrying about the amendment.