Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill
11:29 am
Richard Kemp: Again, I have to ask: is this significantly different from what happens now? We have area committees in Liverpool, and most of the community members—we have voluntary members on board—are failed candidates of other political parties, of which there are quite a few in Liverpool. We have to find a way of dealing with that. We know the green ink brigade, but it is relatively small. I would not like to be prescriptive over regulations to try to deal with a small number of people, and prevent people from genuinely coming to use the system.
We basically believe that the community call for action is a strengthening of the role of the front-line councillor, particularly because it will make other organisations relate to us in a better way. At the moment, that is quite serendipitous. We can go to different parts of the same place and the police work very closely with the ward councillors but, under the next area commander, they do not. This is really a help and I would not over-regulate it. If there are problems, one hopes there is flexibility. However, if the council just says, “We’re not dealing with you again, Mr. Smith,” there will be recognition that other MPs and who-have-you would not intrude.