LG 1 - Cymdeithas Llywodraeth Leol Cymru

Atotiad 1 - Saesneg yn unig

Proposed Local Government (Wales) Measure – Supplementary Questions

Thank you for your invitation to present evidence on the 11th November, and for your supplementary letter of the 18th November. I have sought to answer the questions below.

Q1: Please can clarify whether you wish to dispense with improvement plans altogether or do you consider their inclusion on the face of the proposed Measure unnecessary? If the latter, how should they be covered?

The inclusion of Improvement Plans on the face of the proposed Measure is unnecessary. We support the spirit of Section 15 which covers ‘Improvement planning and publication of improvement information’ and endorse all the paragraphs up until the final reference in paragraph (6) of ‘an improvement plan’. Such prescription is unnecessary if authorities are already meeting the duties in paragraphs 1-6. It is similar to the related issue of removing the prescribed date of publication from the face of the Measure and including it within statutory guidance, as discussed at Committee. Whilst some authorities may well prefer to retain a specific ‘improvement plan’, in practice most of an authority’s improvement priorities and objectives are contained and mainstreamed within other publications such as corporate plans and service plans. We simply see the reference to a specific ‘improvement plan’ as unnecessarily restrictive.

Q2: You also state in paragraph 50 that it remains difficult to envisage how, under any circumstances, the power to direct collaboration might be effectively deployed independently of other powers of intervention available to Ministers and that if those other powers were being appropriately and effectively deployed, the further power to direct collaboration would be very unlikely to be necessary. Please can you give a practical example to illustrate your point?

The Minister, speaking at Partnership Council on 27th November himself said he could not conceive of a situation where such a power to direct collaboration would at present be required and, indeed, cited Denbighshire County Council as an example where such a new power to direct collaboration would not have been used. There has been a concerted and collective local government effort to support Denbighshire during the past 12 months, with additional support from the Assembly Government. As a result, Estyn has confirmed that the authority’s education service is improving.

Q3: Do you envisage any circumstances in which Welsh Ministers might have cause to use their powers to direct collaboration and if so, what might they be?

No. As stated above, the Assembly Government cannot specify an occasion where it might decide to use the proposed power. As noted in our evidence, there is a strong culture of collaborative support within the family of Welsh local government. Authorities offer peer support, both professional and political, to those authorities who are experiencing improvement challenges. This support is further complemented by improvement support and capacity provided by the WLGA’s improvement teams, including the Social Services Improvement Agency and the WLGA Improvement and Governance Team. The likelihood of the Assembly Government ever needing to use the proposed power is therefore remote.

Q4: What do you think the impact would be if, having consulted a 'non-failing' authority under section 31, Welsh Ministers directed that authority to collaborate against its will?

The proposed new power is a ‘power of last resort’ (according to the Minister at Partnership Council) and, to put it crudely, would be used to direct an authority to collaborate with another authority which has corporate or service failings. We object for a number of reasons:

- On grounds of principle – it undermines local autonomy and local discretion

- There’s no need for the power – welsh councils already work collaboratively, sharing capacity and expertise (both political and professional) to support those authorities facing particular improvement challenges. The Measure strengthens this by giving councils the ‘power to collaborate’.

- It will not work – if an authority has decided it is unable to support another authority voluntarily it would have had a legitimate reason e.g. due to capacity or financial pressures or that such support may be to the detriment of its own services. Assembly Government direction against an authority’s wishes would not overcome these capacity/financial pressures and would hardly engender a constructive or conducive environment for mutual support.

- It will create problems for the authority, for the Minister and for the public - What would happen if services in the ‘supporting council’ started to deteriorate because WAG had forced it to ‘pick up the problems’ of a neighbouring authority, particularly against its wishes? Such a scenario would have a range of potentially significant electoral, political, regulatory, financial and legal ramifications, notwithstanding the potential detrimental impact on service users within the authority’s own boundaries. The Assembly Government’s focus of this proposed power to date has exclusively been on the authority requiring improvement support, however, it is not clear whether the Assembly Government has given full consideration to the potential significant ramifications on the ‘supporting authority’ if this proposed power was used.

Given that neither the WLGA nor the Assembly Government can presently identify need for the new power, the power is superfluous given Wales’ healthy commitment to collaborative improvement and there are potentially significant, unexplored ramifications, the WLGA argues strongly therefore that this power should be removed from the face of the proposed Measure as it will serve little more than to be an affront to local autonomy.

Q5: Please could you provide some more information about the Intervention Protocol and how it would fit with your suggested changes to sections 29 and 30?

The Intervention protocol has been jointly drafted by the Assembly Government and local government to codify how Assembly Ministers would exercise their existing powers of intervention and how they would consult and engage with an authority or the WLGA before doing so. There is already a range of statutory powers available to the Welsh Assembly Government for local government intervention and direction, notably those powers of direction for Welsh Ministers specified under Section 15 of the Local Government Act 1999.

The protocol also clarifies the role of regulators and the range of support available to authorities prior to any intervention, either through WLGA improvement support or peer support from other authorities. The protocol also outlines alternative options to ‘direct’ Ministerial intervention, such as the appointment of an external advisory board, a model that has already been successfully adopted in Welsh authorities previously.  

The protocol was drafted by a working group of Assembly Government, local government, WLGA and SOLACE officer representatives and was consulted upon earlier this year. The protocol will be updated in the future following the Proposed Local Government (Wales) Measure.

A copy of the draft protocol is attached for information.

Q6. Please can you explain further the concept of "community leadership" outlined in paragraph 54 of your written evidence, in particular how it could be incorporated into section 37 of the proposed Measure and why it would be of benefit?

The WLGA welcomes the Measure’s commitment to retaining local authorities’ central and coordinating role in the community planning process, and its non-inclusion within the list of ‘community planning partners’ that should ‘participate’ in the process (the original policy consultation included local government as one of a number of the partners, and therefore undermined the key community leadership role of convening the partnership).

The concept of ‘community leadership’ role of local government was formalised following the Local Government Act 2000, and reflected the fact local authorities had a duty to prepare community strategies and to convene the community partnership, but the wider powers to promote economic, environmental and social wellbeing for their areas. However the concept was not new, as it related to the emerging concept of wider governance, whereby local government increasingly worked with wider partners in the public, voluntary and private sector and with citizens and communities.

The WLGA recommends that the separate Statutory Guidance required for Part II of the Proposed Measure should further assert the community leadership role of local government. This would clarify to partners why local authorities are tasked with coordinating and leading the community planning process, but would also serve to emphasise the Assembly Government’s ongoing commitment and understanding of the key role played by Welsh local government.

Q7: In paragraph 56 of your written evidence your express concern about the concept of "review as a periodic event" and the four yearly review period for community strategies set out in section 40. Please could you clarify your concerns and what any potential rewording of the proposed Measure should aim to cover?

This echoes the lessons that we learned about periodic reviews through the initial ‘Best Value’ regime and first iteration of the Wales Programme for Improvement Guidance (18/2002). The Guidance initially envisaged that the ‘Whole Authority Analysis’ (which it introduced) would be repeated at least every 5 years. The requirement for periodic Whole Authority Analyses was subsequently withdrawn as it became clear that the periodic evaluation, challenge and revision were in fact being better delivered through authorities’ mainstreamed and continuous self-assessment, risk assessment, and business planning processes.

This was recognition that ‘review’ is better regarded as a continuous process rather than a periodic event. This does not prevent periodic review ‘events’ particularly if an authority or a community planning partnership felt they were appropriate; but statutory requirements for such events can undermine the development of continuous processes. At the very least, we would recommend that the requirements in relation to review (and particularly timetabling) should be established in supporting guidance, rather than being set in stone in the core legislation.

Q8: Please could you explain why Welsh Ministers "should have regard" to priorities outlined in community strategies in the exercise of their functions, as your suggest in paragraph 62 of your written evidence? How does this clarify the role of Ministers?

The WLGA has argued that the Assembly Government should have regard for the 22 community strategies ever since they were introduced following the Local Government Act 2000. Community strategies are the partnership aspirations and visions of all key local players, which have been shaped by extensive public engagement and underpinned by extensive evidence based research. Whilst primarily shaping local priorities and activities, they are statutory documents and are received by the Welsh Assembly Government (by the Minister for Local Government).

The WLGA would argue that not only should the Minister (or his Department) inform all Departments of the relevant policy/service specific priorities contained in the 22 community strategies but that these priorities should in turn seek to inform Assembly Government policy, priorities and strategies. It would be remiss of the Assembly Government not to seek to learn from the evidence and local priorities as outlined in the 22 community strategies and would be an oversight if the Assembly Government introduced policies which undermined local priorities which sought to address local needs. Given the level of citizen and community involvement in shaping the community strategy priorities, such an approach would be sensible mechanism for ensuring Assembly Government policies are themselves ‘citizen-centred’.

I trust the above provides further clarity to our original evidence. Should you have any further queries, please do not hesitate in contacting me.

Yours sincerely,

Steve Thomas
Chief Executive / Prif Weithredwr