Plan to move to peer review

Author: Public Service - Feb 4, 2010

Local area agreements (LAA) will be restructured so that they no longer face major intervention from Whitehall when councils are deciding their own priorities, should the Tories win the general election, writes Dean Carroll.

Conservative Party deputy chairman Bob Neill told Public Servant that under Tory plans, mechanisms such as LAAs and local strategic partnerships will, in effect, be reorganised to act like a peer-review inspection regime with little interference from civil servants.

Neill, who is also shadow local government minister, revealed he had already been in discussions with the Audit Commission over proposed reforms, which will see the comprehensive area assessment (CAA) regime phased out within the first parliament of a Conservative government. Last month, we revealed that the commission was preparing alternative plans to CAA, should David Cameron triumph at the ballot box, even though the system had only been introduced a year ago.

"Our proposals will be no surprise to the commission when the time comes," said Neill. "LAAs need not be central mechanisms while we want any inspection to be as light touch as possible – certainly nothing like the micromanagement of local government that exists now."

Asked if government would intervene at local authorities involved in major service breakdowns, Neill said: "We have to accept that some councils will fail, that is part of the freedom they will be allowed. We don't want heavy-handed intervention except in high-risk areas like children's services. We need localisation of targets and, also, the phasing out of ring-fenced budgets during our first parliament – there's a huge amount we can do in terms of decentralisation."

Speaking earlier at the inaugural North East Local Government Summit, Neill revealed that a Tory government would retain the current Labour administration's Total Place initiative and, possibly, even extend it to Whitehall departments and private sector service providers. At the moment, the 13 pilots are focused on expenditure by local public agencies. He also told delegates that his party would be publishing a green paper on planning gain methods this month and promised that David Cameron would let local authorities keep the proceeds from council tax and business rates on new developments – for the next six years.

"That way, councils can build up a pot of money and it means development will be seen as a business opportunity rather than a threat."

Despite the radical measures, the Conservative Party maintains that it will not attempt to reform the local government finance system – effectively, ruling out the local taxation switch that many critics say is necessary to deliver true decentralisation.

Go to the original article here