Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Bill [HL]

This amendment focuses for the first time in this Committee on local partnerships, which are extremely important as part of local governance. They hardly existed 20 years ago. All the signs are that they will not go away, but will become more important. It is impossible to draw a sensible map of the system of local governance without including all the partnership arrangements and partnership bodies, some of which exist as statutory bodies and some of which do not. Some just exist and have come about on a voluntary basis. The Government may say that they exist on a voluntary basis but local strategic partnerships are not really voluntary bodies. The Government say that we have to have them, but they have no basis in local government law. They play a different part in different areas, but they are important pretty well everywhere. Amendment 5 refers to local strategic partnerships and to crime and disorder reduction partnerships. Crime and disorder reduction partnerships are statutory bodies, but they are still partnerships of local bodies. A few years ago, as these bodies were burgeoning, my noble friend Lord Shutt of Greetland, while he was still a councillor, asked the chief executive of Calderdale Council in west Yorkshire to draw up a list of all the partnerships, local trusts and similar bodies on which that council had representation, and there were more than 100 bodies. How local decisions are made cannot be described without including them. Some of us would call it the local ““quangocracy”” and we may think that they have gone too far. However, following the previous legislation that we discussed in the Moses Room, changes to LSPs and local area agreements have probably improved matters and have put the council more at the centre of what is going on than it was. Nevertheless, it is complex and, for the purpose of the amendment, it exists. There are very often opportunities within these partnerships for people to go along and take part. Some of them are distinctly unfriendly and secretive in how they take decisions, while others—LSPs, for example—may have sub-committees, working groups or local forums set up under the auspices of the LSP, which are specifically there to involve people. So it is ludicrous to leave them out. Crime reduction partnerships are there to involve people, and people can go along and take part in them. So there are opportunities, although LSPs exist in a sort of vacuum. They remind me of the old rhyme: "““Yesterday upon the stair, I met a man who wasn't there. He wasn't there again today I wish that man would go away””." LSPs are a bit like that—they are there, even when they are not there, in the legislation—and they are important. Amendment 20 simply attempts to define a partnership for this purpose. I am not at all sure that it is the right definition, but I could not find the definition of a partnership in relation to local government in any legislation. The Minister may be able to tell me where it is, but I could not find it. So I am suggesting that a partnership means, "““a non-corporate body or trust whose membership includes the principal local authority and in whose democratic and decision-making structures the authority is represented whether by members or officer or both””." I am quite sure that it should be there, however the Government feel that it should be defined. I beg to move.