Clause 84
Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill
4:45 pm
Phil Woolas (Minister of State (Local Government & Community Cohesion), Department for Communities and Local Government; Oldham East and Saddleworth, Labour)
The hon. Gentleman has raised an important issue—one that the Local Government Association has raised with the Government. I cannot remember whether it did so in the evidence-gathering session, but it certainly did so before that.
The Government’s intention is that there should be some 200 common measurements—national indicators, in the jargon. I shall not mention the 18 education targets that were mentioned by the hon. Member for Bedford. Of the 200, there should be some 35 that are agreed by the local authority, its partners, and the Government. The 35 could be different in different areas, of course. That is the important point. It is the way to meet the paradox, faced by all Governments, of equity and a postcode lottery on the one hand and devolution on the other, while maintaining the right of an elected Government, and indeed—I would argue—the right of Parliament, to outline the minimum goals.
Why not include particular targets explicitly in the Bill? I want to try to convince the hon. Member for Poole of the Government’s rationale for not doing so. The Government do not apologise for the number of targets that local government faces. The figure of between 600 and 1,200 sounds huge, although it is less so when one considers the vast range of services that local authorities provide. Nevertheless, it is a huge number, and local authorities report that it is over-burdensome.
I find it ironic that hon. Members—from both sides of the House, but especially from the Opposition side—pray in evidence the comprehensive performance assessment star rating, given that is produced by the very performance review that is sometimes criticised. Such is the way of the world, however. I shall not go into detail about the own local authority, but it is doing well.
We believe that a figure of approximately 35 is sensible for the number of shared targets. That figure has not been plucked out of the air; it has been taken from a consideration of the nature of the indicators, and from discussion. The figure is better dealt with in guidance, however. To set the upper limit at 35 would not take account of the 18 statutory early years and educational attainment targets to which the Government are committed. In the White Paper, we stated that LAAs would need to contain those targets in addition to the approximately 35 nationally negotiated targets.
Clause 81 provides that responsible authorities should agree the local improvement targets in co-operation with partner authorities. The amendment would make the same provision. The targets will then be submitted for approval by the Secretary of State. Thereafter, if individual targets are of key national interest, they will be designated as provided for in clause 84. The effect of designation would be that such targets could not be altered without the approval of the Secretary of State, given that they are of key national interest.
To set out the definition of a designated target in regulations would substantially reduce the level of discretion for agreement of targets that would be available to responsible authorities and their partners. If we used regulations to define such targets—an area economic well-being target for reduction of unemployment, for example—those targets would then be designated in all local area agreements for England. However, it might not be appropriate for such a target to be so designated; there might be more important targets in a particular area.
The alternative would be that the Secretary of State would have to define from the outset, in regulations, exactly the sort of targets that would be designated in each area. That would be unworkable, and would lead to prescription from the centre. The regulations would inevitably be unable to cover every target that would be likely to be designated for a certain area. That would lead in turn to a real risk of the Secretary of State being unable, because it was not in the regulations, to designate a target that appeared in the LAA—despite he or she otherwise wishing to designate it. Incidentally, it is on that point that I think that the Sustainable Communities Bill gets things absolutely the wrong way round; unintentionally, it gives power of veto to the Secretary of State.
The consequence of all that is that putting into the Bill the figure of 35 would jeopardise a local authority’s ability to have the flexibility to set targets that were suitable for its area. I use the example of unemployment deliberately. If one were to say that Surrey, for example, should have to focus on an unemployment target and that Easington should not, most Members would reasonably say that that should not be the priority; there may also be examples the other way round. The effect of the amendment would be to take away that flexibility.
Putting a number in the Bill in the way that the hon. Gentleman described would be giving in to a temptation to obtain temporary reassurance. This legislation should be sustainable and long-lasting, and it may be that there is reason why one would want to have a different figure or figures, which were higher or lower.
I hope that I am not one of those Ministers who says, “Trust me and trust my successors,” because we will be putting into guidance the objective of setting out the number of targets that we wish to see achieved. In truth, because we are working on the 200 indicators, it is premature to specify a figure, which is why the Secretary of State and I say about 35, because, in all honesty, we do not know as yet whether it will be 35.