Legal

1
Legal Policy Framework for Empowerment
Davy Jones
2
Key legislation guidance

• 2006 White Paper Strong Prosperous
  Communities
• LAAs operational guidance (Oct 07)
• Empowerment Action Plan (Oct 07)
• 2007 Local Government Public
  Involvement in Health (LGPIH) Act
• Sustainable Communities Act (Oct 07)
• Statutory guidance for LGPIH (Jul 08)
• CAA consultation document (Jul 08)
• Communities in Control new White
  Paper on Empowerment
  (Jul 08)
• Participatory Budgeting Strategy (Sep 08)

3
Local Government Public Involvement in Health
Act

• Structural reforms unitaries, mayors, parishes
  etc
• Local Area Agreements across England upper tier
  from April 2008
• New duty to inform, consult involve from
  April 2009
• Changes to local service inspection CAA
• Local Involvement Networks (LINks) in health and
  social care
• New statutory place shaping guidance now
  published

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Statutory guidance - LGPIH

• A new settlement between central government,
  local government their partners, citizens
• services will be improved communities
  strengthened only if local people are effectively
  engaged and empowered
• LSP role to establish vision for area local
  priorities
• Councils political leadership of LSP
• Expanded policy remit scrutiny role over
  partners
• Neighbourhood community representation
• Delivery commissioning guidance

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Local Area Agreements

• All 150 top tier authorities (with districts
  involvement)
• All single pot funded by Area Based Grant
• Based on Sustainable Community Strategy,
  determines key priorities and targets for area
• Up to 35 ( 17 statutory DCSF) targets
• Link to new National Indicators Places
  Survey (NI 1 4)
• Citizens should be involved in shaping LAA
• LSPs self assess progress annually against
  LAA report to local citizens
  Government

6
Statutory guidance - LSPs

• Key role for LSP as forum for collectively
  reviewing and steering public resources, through
  identifying priorities in Sustainable Community
  Strategies and LAA ( LDF/JSNA)
• New statutory duty to co-operate for key named
  partners in LSP around agreeing/delivering LAA
  targets
• Aligns resources and reviews performance across
  partners
• Guidance on local neighbourhood charters
  (community contracts in latest White Paper)
  parish plans
• Planned capacity-building programmes through
  Government Offices (GOs) to strengthen LSPs
• But remain non-statutory unaccountable
  (except council)

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How it all fits together
Police
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Sustainable Communities Act

• Initially Private Members Bill amended by
  Government
• Allows for proposals on making local communities
  more sustainable local panels make proposals
  via LGA to H Blears
• Council can seek statement of financial resources
  going into their area from central Government
• SCA defines civic and political activity as
  being part of the social, economic and
  environmental well-being of area
• Guide to SCA published, LGPIH statutory
  guidance covers how SCA panels relate to other
  engagement activity how to ensure their
  representativeness

9
Section 138 Duty to Involve

• New duty to inform, consult involve from
  April 2009 to embed a culture of engagement
  empowerment
• Best Value authorities (except Police Wales)
• Where BV authority considers it appropriate, it
  must involve representatives of local persons or
  local persons in the exercise of their functions
  by
• Providing information on the exercise of the
  function
• Consulting about the exercise of the function
• Involve in another way about the exercise of
  function
• Appropriate guidance states routine
  functions significant one-off decisions
• Co-ordinate engagement activity across LSP

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Duty to involve police/health

• Section 96 Police Act 1996 Section 157 of
  Serious Organised Crime Police Act 2005
• White Paper proposes extending duty to police
• S11 Health Social Care Act 2002 S242 NHS Act
  2006
• LGPIH 2007 added need to report on consultation
• NICE guidance on community engagement how it
  can improve public health, February 2008
• S221 LGPIH introduced LINks key council role
  for health social care

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Comprehensive Area Assessment

• For the first time, local public services will
  be held collectively to account for their impact
  on better local outcomes
• Multi-inspectorate review of area and
  organisations replaces CPA, Use of Resources
  Direction of Travel
• Area Assessment how well are local public
  services delivering better results for local
  people on local priorities
• Organisational assessment how well eg council
  and fire rescue services manage finances,
  business, resources performance
• From rolling programmes to targeted inspections

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CAA and Empowerment

• CAA will assess implementation of duty to
  involve
• How well council/partners know/engage with their
  communities (esp vulnerable/hard to reach)
• Community involvement in defining
  priorities/assessing outcomes
• Co-ordination of partners community engagement
• Self assessment accuracy will be key
• Organisational assessment KLOEs include how
  organisation engages local communities in
  financial planning
• Reporting CAA seen as key way to help citizens
  hold local services to account
• Challenge to managerialist councils
• CAA will be key driver to deliver empowerment
  agenda

13
New Engagement Cycle

• Citizens debate local priorities, services
  budgets
• Feeds into Sustainable Community Strategy, Local
  Area Agreement neighbourhood charters
• Annual self assessment by LSP
• Independent inspectorate assessment of area,
  using assessment of engagement etc
• LSPs produce annual report for citizens which
  feeds back into involvement process
• LSPs choose from menu of options (PB, Citizens
  Panels) to co-ordinate involvement of citizens
  cyclically in these processes

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Do People Want To Be Engaged?
50-60 want services to get on with the job
25-40 get involved around specific life choices
schools, moving house etc
32 say it is very important to be involved, 47
quite important 71 people would get involved in
process where they decided how where
local money was spent Opinion Leader research
2-5 are citizen activists
Mori Audit Commission
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Evidence why people dont participate
Power Inquiry (2006) remarked that people want to
become engaged, but see no point in it. It
concluded that citizens do not feel that the
processes of formal democracy offer them enough
influence over political decisions
Citizens often believe that the official mind is
already made up, or that it will not listen to
the results of participation exercises

(Lowndes et al 2001)
In a survey of best practice authorities, Audit
Commission found that three-quarters failed to
link the results of consultation with
decision-making processes (2005)
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Empowerment White Paper

• Communities in Control real people, real power,
  
  July 2008 including Evidence Annex
  consultation document
• Proposed new Community Empowerment,
  Housing Economic
  Regeneration Bill in 2008/09
• NEW duty to promote democracy ( review of
  publicity publicity code)
• NEW duty to respond to petitions (including
  council role on
  petitions on health)
• NEW extension of duty to involve (list of
  national, regional local
  organisations)
• NEW right to petition to hold officers to account
  
• Response to Councillors Commission, inc review
  Widdicombe rules

17
White Paper new duties/rights
NEW duty to promote democracy NEW duty to respond
to petitions NEW extended duty to inform,
consult involve NEW right to hold
officers publicly to account
18
Participatory Budgeting

• Empowerment White Paper says participatory
  budgeting to be used in every local authority
  area by 2012
• Spread from Porto Alegre, Brazil to 300 cities
  world-wide
• Emphasis on deliberative debate and transparency
• UK pilots for past 5 years
• Newcastle (young people)
• Salford (highways)
• Bradford (voluntary sector)
• Keighley (neighbourhoods)
• Southampton Thornhill (health)
• DCSF support for PB / young people YOPF, YCF
• Commitment to develop in police/health/councillors
  delegated budgets
• PB fits well potentially with LAA cyclical
  engagement

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Scale of empowerment shift

• Aspiration is to embed a culture of engagement
  and empowerment
• Consistency of message across Government
  This is a Government White Paper
• Similar to the 1990s culture shift on Performance
  Management
• 21st century popular expectations/choice
• Common sense to seek service user
  citizens views
• But some officers/Members/VCS may feel
  threatened by this shift

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Political consensus ?

• Localism, less inspection PIs, and involving
  citizens not just New Labour
  agenda
• Liberal Democrats always supported devolution/
  localism people power
• David Cameron speech to Conservative Councillors
  Association This is the future local
  councils being judged, held
  accountable, evaluated by your residents
• Tory-controlled LGA response LGA supports the
  intentions of the Empowerment White
  Paper
• Pickles proposal for non-conformance with New
  Labour laws quickly reined in
  by Cameron

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Impact of economic crisis

• Case for empowerment needs to be recast if it
  is seen as an add-on or a luxury, it will not get
  funded, or be cut
• Arguments for empowerment in hard times
• Consultation/involvement leads to better
  targeting of services
• Investment that will pay long-term dividends
• Co-ordinated engagement across partners can save
  money
• Involvement in resource allocation strengthens
  social cohesion
• Involving citizens in tough decisions can
  deflect criticism from
  Members/officers
• Not investing in empowerment will lead to
  poor CAA results heads will roll