Clause 81
Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill
4:00 pm
Alistair Burt (Shadow Minister (Communities and Local Government), Communities and Local Government; North East Bedfordshire, Conservative)
The amendment gives us an opportunity to talk about the importance of the voluntary sector and the involvement of non-statutory partners. The voluntary and independent sectors are important in the future of local government.
I have the honour to sit with the hon. Member for High Peak on the Commission on the Future of Volunteering, which was set up last year by Volunteering England, under the leadership of Baroness Neuberger. We are conducting a review of what is currently happening in volunteering around the country and hope to make recommendations in future about how volunteering can be spread even further throughout society and be made most effective.
On talking to groups that involve volunteers, one cannot doubt that their engagement as service providers throughout the community and the increasing reliance of local authorities and other statutory authorities on volunteers is a key issue for them. Most volunteers, who come into organisations to be useful and to provide something for society, are only too pleased to work hand in hand with the statutory authorities that need them. Equally, however, they do not want that enthusiasm to be drowned out in the process of making contracts and find their determination to work being channelled in such a way that they are not necessarily volunteering on their own behalf, but feel more that they are being asked to follow somebody else’s agenda, which detracts from the spirit that brought them into volunteering. I say that simply to illustrate how important their commitment and involvement is. The amendments are designed to give them statutory recognition in a way that the clause does not quite do.
The clause is permissive. It allows, in subsection (2)(a)(ii), for the responsible local authority to consult
“such other persons as appear to it to be appropriate”,
as opposed to “each partner authority”, with which it must consult. That provision would cover bringing on board those in voluntary organisations and others. However, the amendment states that where such people have been engaged as partners, they should have a status beyond that of any others and should not be brought along as an afterthought.