Remove local area agreement laws and duty to involve, say councils
The government’s review of the statutory duties placed on local authorities has revealed that local area agreement legislation, the duty to involve and the requirement to prepare a Sustainable Communities strategy, are top of councils’ wish list for removal.
In a written ministerial statement announcing the closure of the project, the Minister for Decentralisation, Greg Clark, said the review had attracted comments from more than 6,000 respondents before the deadline in April.
The main purpose of the exercise was to build a comprehensive list of duties and remove those considered unnecessary, old and outdated.
However, the summary of responses revealed that “a clear outcome of the review was that respondents, particularly interest groups and the public, used the opportunity to remind central government of the importance of some duties that they want to see maintained as protections rather than identify duties that could be regarded as unhelpful and unnecessary”.
Of the more than 21,000 individual comments received, just 10% involved suggestions of duties that could be removed. The other 90% were supportive of keeping specific duties.
The greatest number of responses were on planning (particularly in relation to the duties regarding allotments), children and young people, and libraries. There was also “considerable interest” expressed on the themes of housing, adult social care, public health, environmental protection, highways and road traffic management.
The summary also reported significant interest in removing process-based requirements placed on local authorities as an important step in moving towards a decentralised system of governance.
Some 1,294 duties had been identified at the time the review was launched, but this figure has now risen to 1,353. The report also revealed that 8% of statutory duties were introduced pre-1979, while 39% came into force in the period from 1979 to 1996. Half (50%) of the duties were introduced between 1997 and 2009, while 3% came into force last year.
The Minister said: “At no point in recent history has there been a comprehensive list of the legal duties placed on councils. The government therefore agreed with the Local Government Association that we should compile a list of these duties to give clarity about what these duties are.
“We recognise that many ensure the provision of vital frontline services but there are others which may be creating unnecessary burdens and bureaucracy for local authorities.”
The Minister pointed out that, “for the avoidance of doubt”, inclusion of a particular duty on the overall list was not an indication that the government was considering that duty for removal.
Any future consideration of whether to remove specific duties or associated guidance would be a separate process, and the government would consult further as appropriate, he said.
Clark insisted that the review had not happened in isolation. “For example, the Munro Review on child protection and the Law Commission's work on adult social care are currently being considered by government,” he said, insisting that the project was not meant to pre-empt the outcomes of such reviews.
“From the outset, we have been clear this is an exercise in compiling as comprehensive a list of duties as possible and obtaining feedback on those thought to be redundant,” Clark added. “We said unequivocally that the government would not remove any statutory duties that protect vital front line services.”
The minister said: “This exercise has successfully enabled a clearer picture of the requirements placed on local authorities, and created a valuable record that had previously never existed.”
Philip Hoult
