I wish to speak to new clauses 4 to 6, which stand in my name, and, without wanting to stray from the procedural rules of the House, I may refer to new clause 3, which has not been selected, but I assure you, Mr Deputy Speaker, that it will be a fleeting reference.
As has been said, on Second Reading I referred to the Transparency International report on the potential for corruption in local government. I circulated the report to all Members in advance of this debate and I am grateful that the Minister took up my suggestion to meet Transparency International and that the report became a subject of debate in Committee.
I tabled these new clauses to draw attention to some of the issues raised by the Transparency International report and to seek at least an element of forward momentum with regard to addressing these issues in future. It is critical that we maintain the confidence of the general public in the administration of local government. I think that Transparency International has helped us greatly, although its report says that it is very difficult to identify evidence other than anecdotal evidence about the level of corruption that may exist in UK local government. I believe we all share the view that the vast majority of councillors and council officials do an excellent job to a very high standard of probity and efficiency. Nevertheless, we are plagued with anecdotal information about elements of local government and with doubts about corruption.
Given the lack of data on corruption in local government collected at national level or any other level, Transparency International looks at the systems implemented to make sure that corruption does not take place. Its report says:
“Here, a disturbing picture emerges, and one on which experts and interviewees”—
in the study—
“were agreed. On the one hand, the conditions are present in which corruption is likely to thrive—low levels of transparency, poor external scrutiny, networks of cronyism, reluctance or lack of resource to investigate, outsourcing of public services, significant sums of money at play and perhaps a denial that corruption is an issue at all.”
My new clauses address those key elements. First, lack of transparency relates to new clause 3, which has not been selected, so I will not dwell on it. On Second Reading, I gave the example of my own local authority—this may happen elsewhere, so I would welcome the views of other Members—regularly putting items in part 2 of its agenda on the basis of spurious commercial confidentiality. When the find of prehistoric flints on one of my sites was reported in part 2 of the agenda, I joked in a previous debate that commercial confidentiality might have been important 3,000 years ago, but it is not now. It is, however, becoming a regular way of stifling debate and of preventing issues from being reported in the local media.
I believe—this is why I tabled new clause 3—that we need to address that. Central Government need to be clear about how often it is happening in local government and about the scale of its use and whether it is being used appropriately. They also need to address whether they have a role to play in providing further and better guidelines on how part 2 items should be addressed and on how items should be deemed to be commercially confidential or otherwise for the purposes of part 2 of the cabinet system.
That relates to the overall system. Under the previous Government’s local government reforms, which I opposed, we now have quite a centralised local council system whereby the leader is elected and then appoints the cabinet. They are all on a relatively high income these days. I do not begrudge anyone being paid the rate for the job, but the leader of the council in my area is on £65,000 a year and is appointing other members of the cabinet on salaries of between £45,000 and £55,000 a year. That gives the leader extremely wide-ranging powers of patronage and it is the leader who decides which items go into the confidential part of the cabinet agenda. They do so after being given some advice, about which I also have concerns, which I will come to.
That centralisation of decision-making is dangerous and has the potential to result in not just poor decision-making and lack of transparency, but corrupt decision-making. That level of centralised control is part of the problem we now have. One of the issues thrown up by Transparency International’s report is that, structurally, we have opened ourselves up to decisions being made by a very limited number of councillors, with limited scrutiny by others. Whatever people thought of the old committee system—to be frank, it might well have been relatively slow at times—it was more open, democratic and transparent.
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That brings me to the second element of my new clauses, which is covered in new clause 4. I am anxious that scrutiny in local government should depend on the
system of scrutiny committees established by the previous Government, but those committees work only if they are properly resourced and can scrutinise decisions with an element of detailed research and knowledge. In my area, I am fearful that lip service is simply paid to scrutiny. There is not sufficient investment in officers to support such committees, and patronage in relation to them exerts a role in preventing its members from having independence of mind.
I tabled new clause 4 to suggest that there should be a review by the Secretary of State and a report to this House on how scrutiny is working in local government. My hon. Friend the Member for Corby (Andy Sawford) suggests that that should be left to local government, but that is the problem. In areas such as mine, which is increasingly becoming a one-party state, there is no way to enable a proper independent examination of scrutiny practices or to know whether scrutiny structures are operational. If the Audit Commission is no longer to exist, there does not seem to be any other body, other than the Secretary of State, with the power to instigate an investigation into whether scrutiny is working. I am sure that it works extremely effectively in some areas, but in others it is poor to the point of virtual non-existence. [Interruption.] My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts) is obviously tagged—another form of scrutiny. [Laughter.]
The new clauses are about transparency and scrutiny, but my new clause 5 relates to Transparency International’s concern about the lack of resource to investigate corruption in individual councils. I am concerned because it is very difficult to find information anywhere about the scale of local authority investment to ensure full probity. For example, with the latest round of cuts in local government, I am anxious about cuts to areas involving the management of accounts and their internal audit in finance departments. Because cuts in staffing have been so large, there is vulnerability in local government in that staff are not available for councillors to be able to ensure proper investigation or to bring to book corrupt elements. The new clause therefore suggests that the Secretary of State should prepare and lay before the House a report on the adequacy of resources and staffing levels, but also on the structures and procedures that individual authorities have put in place to detect and investigate fraud. At the moment, there is fragility in local government in relation to the investigation and detection of fraud.
My new clause 6 is about compromise agreements. I have asked questions over the past year about the use of such agreements within local government, and the response has been that it is not monitored by the Department for Communities and Local Government and that, therefore, no information is available. We have to go back to anecdote, which is the problem in this debate. As Transparency International has highlighted in its report, the vast majority of council officials leaving in my area do so on the basis of compromise agreements. I do not understand why such agreements are used to ensure that there is a gagging clause to prevent an official from commenting on their local authority’s activities, efficiency and other matters.
I can understand to a certain extent the use of compromise agreements in the private sector, but their use in the public sector seems to undermine the structures and procedures we put in place for whistleblowing. To cite my own area again, officers seem to disappear time
and again, particularly after criticising the local authority or individual councillors—their desk is suddenly vacated and they have gone—and we then discover that they have left under a compromise agreement. They do not gain their full benefits until that has been negotiated—often, I have to say, at the door of the tribunal—but a compromise agreement is signed, so they get their pay-off, but they are not allowed to comment on the issues that may well have been what resulted in their leaving the authority. I doubt that that is peculiar to my own local authority, but I think that it flies in the face of openness, transparency and accountability.
I am simply suggesting that the Secretary of State should investigate what is happening in relation to such matters. It would be helpful to know how frequently compromise agreements are used across local authorities. It would also be useful to know how often confidentiality clauses are incorporated into such agreements and, frankly, why there is any need for them. I can understand their use to a certain extent if there are strict matters of commercial confidentiality involving a contract between a local authority and an individual company, but their use seems to range much further and even to cover any element of criticism of a local authority and its actions.
My new clauses are an attempt to address the issues raised by Transparency International. I am not making party political points. As I have said, I am criticising structures and systems put in place by the previous Government, but also trends that have accelerated under this Government in recent years. They have increased not localism, but centralism within individual local authorities, and they have produced cuts that have cut the very officers needed to maintain levels of probity and undermined the ability of councillors who are not in the ruling regime or on its back benches to undertake appropriate and effective scrutiny.
I do not expect the Government to accept my new clauses, but I flag them up as issues that we need to bear in mind. We must send a message to local government that this House has concerns about these matters and that we take Transparency International’s report seriously. I suggest that the Government need—the Minister should take this upon his shoulders—to have a close watching brief on these issues and to engage in a dialogue with local government associations to see whether they have concerns. Local government might be able to make proposals for future reforms to ensure that we address the concerns expressed in Transparency International’s report and the issues that I have raised today.
If the Government do not do so, perhaps such issues should be referred to the Communities and Local Government Committee for a further report or, failing that, we should do what we have done in other instances and bring together a group of Back Benchers who have had a particular interest in or experience of local government over the years to look at such matters independently and report back to the House. These issues will not go away, but will cause more concern in the public mind, particularly as local decisions are made on controversial cuts that people fail either to support or fully understand. That is why full openness and transparency is needed in local councils about decisions that they make.
I commend my new clauses to the House, but I will not press any of them to a Division. I hope that this debate will set an agenda—not only for the Minister to
examine, but at which the House can look at a future date—in relation to whether local government operates effectively and efficiently, but also transparently and openly. It will also demonstrate our concern about corruption, which local government should be willing to address where necessary.