Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill

If they are a charity, they will have the freedom to do that. In terms of the impact it would have on the pattern of local provision, in the voluntary sector we are nearly always in the situation of competing against our best friends. That is part of the negotiation procedure. I will think about what the noble Baroness has said. With regard to the noble Baroness’s other question, we see no reason why this should not happen straightaway. But given the embryonic nature of the organisations, it is more likely that they will want to wait until they have established their raison d’être, until their scope is determined and their priorities, agendas and working programmes set up. But we will have to wait and see. The noble Baroness asked what would happen if hosts and LINks fall out. I cannot imagine that that would ever happen, but LINks will have the opportunity to put their views and concerns directly to the local authority. The contract has got to be deliverable; if LINks finds that its host organisation is doing something that disables it in some way, it would be right and proper for it to go to the local authority and say, ““Look, this contract is not being managed in the way it should be””. That is part of the performance management built into the situation. I have answered most of the questions. It is worth reiterating that this legislation is very permissive and we need to preserve in the arrangements for LINks the duty of the local authority to take a view as to what is necessary. We are talking about minimal levels of support, or it may be a sophisticated arrangement that will either be designed in or will emerge over time. I have a note asking whether local authorities will be able to produce some grants to pay for the costs. This refers to management costs. We have already discussed this with the Local Government Association and we trust that local authorities will take a fairly mature view of it. We will come back to this point and will look at the legal implications of that.