Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill

As noble Lords will know by now, we are trying to drive coherence across an area, and that coherence will obviously involve health and social care as well as all the other things that local authorities do. It is very important that there is one joint strategic needs assessment. That is new, and it is extremely important that it is there, with all the PCTs joined, if there is more than one PCT in an area. The suggestion that somehow each PCT should negotiate separately would completely undermine the purpose of that. The PCTs in a local authority’s geographical boundaries will feed into the same joint strategic needs assessment, and that will help to identify the health and well-being needs of the whole area. The second amendment in the group is essentially counter to the devolutionary thrust of the Bill in two respects, although I appreciate why noble Lords have tabled it. First, Amendment No. 214ZB would require the Secretary of State to publish and comment on the needs of the local population identified by the joint needs assessment. Obviously, that is not appropriate, since this will be locally owned, locally driven and locally designed. Secondly, in terms of resources, it follows that it is for the local authority and its partners to agree on how they wish to use the resources available to them. That is what local authorities should do, and that is how they will translate the findings that come out of the strategic needs assessment into targets and how the targets are going to be delivered. The whole thing does hang together. On that basis, I hope that the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw his amendment.