Limited steps to improve scrutiny

Jessica Crowe, Executive director, Centre for Public Scrutiny

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There is much to welcome in the Department of Communities & Local Government consultation paper on accountability (LGC, 14 August).

The mere fact of its existence is the first step towards the regulations to implement the Local Government & Public Involvement in Health Act 2007's overview and scrutiny powers over local area agreement partners.

In expanding the areas on which partners must provide information to scrutiny committees, there are welcome proposals to increase the power of scrutiny committees.

The consultation also takes forward a local government white paper idea which will be welcomed by many overview and scrutiny officers — the proposal to require (top-tier) councils to have a 'dedicated scrutiny resource', similar to the statutory monitoring officer post.

For scrutiny officers who have to seek answers to members' difficult questions from their (often more senior) council colleagues, statutory protection would not only recognise scrutiny's worth, but also perhaps reduce the 'career-limiting' aspect of this tricky role.

The problem with the paper lies not so much in what it contains as what it does not. The recent policing green paper was silent on the Police & Justice Act 2006 proposals for scrutiny of crime and reduction partnerships (CDRPs). Back in the day a joined-up approach to implementing the two acts was promised by the Home Office and the DCLG.

Then the CDRP scrutiny provisions were "paused" by the Home Office, pending the Flanagan review. Flanagan came and went. So did the green paper. Now this consultation paper is similarly silent on scrutiny of CDRPs, simply referencing an act which has not yet come into force. It leaves an accountability gap on the very issue — crime and disorder — which features in many LAAs and comes top of most lists of public concerns.

There are other gaps in the list of partners who must co-operate with scrutiny — agencies whose activities often impact most on the most vulnerable in our communities: social landlords, benefits agencies, public transport operators, the utilities and the Post Office.

This is not to say that scrutiny committees cannot invite these bodies to give evidence — in fact there are many examples of scrutiny reviews that have done just that. But the agencies are under no obligation to respond to the recommendations, and scrutiny committees have sometimes had to resort to shaming them into appearing at all.

Have these gaps come from Whitehall departments' unwillingness to let go and allow 'their' agencies to be held to account transparently by local people and locally elected representatives?

Given such doubts about cross-Whitehall commitment to key elements of the DCLG's vision for greater local public accountability, there must be doubt about the strength of another of the paper's proposals — to allow local agreement about which public officials are to be required to attend public hearings.

Appearing at local public meetings is nothing new to NHS chief executives and senior police officers. Getting the chief executive of a major housing association to attend to discuss their approach to anti-social behaviour, or a regional utility company representative to come and explain their pricing policies, is quite another challenge.

What are the sanctions if an agency refuses to participate in local agreements? Until all her Whitehall colleagues are signed up to communities secretary Hazel Blears' vision of communities in control, doubts must remain about the difference it will ultimately make.