Clause 25
Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill
9:30 am
Robert Syms (Shadow Minister (Local Government), Communities and Local Government; Poole, Conservative)
I think that I am beginning to understand what I asked. There may be various reserve funds, and some wriggle room for the local authority in termsof general day-to-day management that would presumably be approved in the order. Otherwise, the authority would have to go back to the Ministry every 10 minutes to ask, “Can we buy X or Y?” Is that how it would operate? The term that we used the other day was “financial envelope”. The Government would specify that an authority could spend a certain amount, but for anything over that amount the authority would have to go back to the Secretary of State for permission.