Police and Justice Bill

moved Amendment No. 67: Page 13, leave out lines 31 and 32. The noble Viscount said: My Lords, this amendment seeks to remove the exclusion of county councils from the definition of ““local authority”” in Clause 18 and therefore include them within the community call to action. As noble Lords will be well aware, county councillors are democratically accountable—I certainly do not have to say this to the noble Lord, Lord Bassam—to their local communities and work closely with local partners to ensure their community’s needs are met. These include youth offending teams, drink and alcohol teams, as well as social, education and environmental services, not to mention their work for local strategic partnerships and local area agreements. Indeed, the county council is a responsible authority for community safety services under the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 and plays a key role in this area, as the Home Office review of partnerships arising from the 1998 Act acknowledges, and yet this has failed to be translated into the Bill. The Minister suggested in Committee on 6 July 2006 (Hansard, col. 410) that the inclusion of county council members in the community call to action could result in overlap, duplication of effort and confusion about local accountability. I put it to your Lordships that including county councils would enable powers to deal with all implementation issues and, as a result, encourage the development of local approaches which are both flexible and responsive to local needs. Inclusion will enable discretion and scope for existing local arrangements to identify where issues are best dealt with. The County Councils Network (CNN) has suggested that the confusion the Minister referred to is more likely to occur if the exclusion of county councils is maintained. The reason is that the current proposals make community disorder reduction partnerships accountable to the district council’s scrutiny committee. That would mean that the county council services exercised through the CDRP become nominally accountable to a district council committee, therefore infringing issues of accountability. The CNN goes on to highlight: "““In many counties there are up to eleven or twelve districts and therefore the same number of CDRPs, raising the possibility of the Police and County council being accountable to twelve different bodies””." Surely this has the potential to lead to more confusion and less direct accountability, not the other way round. For example, county councils hold regular surgery sessions to meet local people, at which community safety issues are often raised. If excluded from the CDRP, a county member would not be able to address an issue about which he is likely to be knowledgeable. Instead, local people may face delay and frustration for a further referral elsewhere and a lack of cohesion in local service delivery. Involving county council members would instantly strengthen local democratic arrangements and enable a read-across to the functions of larger service providers and partners such as the police. By excluding county councils, we are excluding local representatives for 80 per cent of England. I beg to move.