Martin Horwood (Shadow Minister, Home Affairs; Cheltenham, Liberal Democrat)

I beg to move amendment No. 4, in clause 3, page 2, line 14, leave out from second ‘authority’ to end of line 26.

Derek Conway (Old Bexley & Sidcup, Conservative)

With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment No. 5, in clause 3, page 2, line 26, at end insert—

‘()A police authority must make arrangements to secure continuous improvement in the way in which its functions are exercised, having regard to a combination of economy, efficiency and effectiveness.’.

Martin Horwood (Shadow Minister, Home Affairs; Cheltenham, Liberal Democrat)

These are probing amendments to try to discover what on earth is the Government’s purpose in clause 3, which does some rather strange things. It is probably common ground that we want good and constantly improving performance and business excellence in police authorities, although judging by what the Minister said at our last sitting, best value may not always be the best way to achieve it. In practice, best value has proved rather bureaucratic and tiresome for public sector organisations.

The amendment would remove paragraph (d), which itself removes from a police authority’s best value obligations

“section 5 (best value reviews);

section 6 (best value performance plans);

sections 7 to 9 (audit of best value performance plans)”,

and sections 13(5) and 15(2) of the Local Government Act 1999, which I consulted to see what would be left. The answer is precious little, except for the right to collect information and to be inspected. It is not so much throwing out the baby with the bathwater, as throwing out the baby and being left with the bathwater. The obligations and the bureaucracy of the best value framework remain, but the meat of best value does not.

That raises the question whether the best value framework is really needed in this context and it is why we suggest removing the proposal and replacing it with a general principle of improving performance. There are plenty of other models of performance improvement that a police authority might choose to adopt: for example, one of its members may have experience of ISO 9000, Investors in People or the European Foundation for Quality Management business excellence model, any of which might be appropriate, cheaper and more effective than what is left of the best value process in the clause. That might be an alternative way to proceed and it is the purpose of the amendment.

Hazel Blears (Minister of State (Policing, Security and Community Safety), Home Office; Salford, Labour)

I hope I can enlighten the hon. Gentleman on why the Bill is so drafted. I am impressed by the amendments’ simplicity; we are trying to achieve the same end result but there is a caveat: we need to keep some of the framework of best value even though we are disapplying some of its specific requirements.

The amendments would disapply all the best value provisions and reapply an overarching duty to secure continuous improvement, which is what we want, but it would mean that the Audit Commission had no role in inspecting police authorities. It is important to keep the Audit Commission’s expertise in carrying out joint inspections with the new commission for justice and safety which the Bill introduces. The Audit Commission has extensive experience of how local authorities should perform. Under the Bill, as drafted, we can still involve the Audit Commission in some joint inspections. If it were amended along the lines of the hon. Gentleman’s proposal, it would shut out the Audit Commission from being able to play what I regard as a constructive role, especially given some of the work that I have seen it carry out. I would not want to lose the benefit of its expertise. I reassure the hon. Gentleman that we want to achieve the same as he and not bind police authorities with the bureaucracy of best value inspections.

We could save about £0.5 million throughout the service if we did not have such a system, but it is important that there is an overarching duty to secure continuous improvement and value for money from our investment in policing. Members of the Committee will know that, in the past five or six years, we have increased investment in policing by about 50 per cent. That is significant, and it is incumbent on all of us to make sure that we get best value. Even though my drafting is perhaps not as elegant as his, I hope that the hon. Gentleman understands why I want the provision to remain as drafted. I ask him to withdraw his amendment.

Martin Horwood (Shadow Minister, Home Affairs; Cheltenham, Liberal Democrat)

I am flattered by the Minister’s compliments on my drafting, although I cannot claim personal responsibility for all of it. However, I shall relay those comments to the researchers who were involved in it. I am somewhat reassured by what the right hon. Lady said and I see the value of an Audit Commission role in inspecting police authorities. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.