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)
That was a very different body. However, the hon. Gentleman is right; under the Care Standards Act 2000, the functions of the National Care Standards Commission were a matter for the chief executive, although he remained accountable to the chair and to the board. For the new inspectorate, which is more beefed up, as it were, than the National Care Standards Commission, the chair and the commissioners may—I emphasise may—wish to have more proximity to some of those executive functions. We have no view on that; we merely seek to make a flexible arrangement so that those well-paid, talented individuals can decide. Clearly there is a demarcation between governance functions and executive functions, but the hon. Gentleman will know that there are differing arrangements within existing public bodies. There is nothing to fear from that; the Government wish simply to make the arrangements flexible enough for the organisation—which is independent, after all—to decide how it wants to conduct its affairs.