Lord Bichard (CB)

My Lords, I rise to speak to my Amendment 191, and, in doing so, declare an interest as an honorary vice-president of the Local Government Association. The amendment would provide for the establishment in every local area of a local public accounts committee to ensure the effective scrutiny and accountability across the whole range of public service spending and activity in that area, not just the actions of the strategic authority or the mayor. So why is an amendment like this necessary? During the past 40 years we have seen in this country a radical fragmentation of our public services with the establishment of a myriad disconnected, sometimes single-purpose agencies. Sadly, these have too often worked in isolation, seeking to achieve their own specific targets energetically, but on occasions their efforts have conflicted or overlapped with their partners. They have too often worked in silos and, sadly, regulators have been very slow to recognise and challenge that. As a result, the public often struggle to access or even make sense of the disjointed services which this system has produced. In addition, resources are wasted because of the overlap and duplication, bureaucracy thrives, and there is inevitably a culture of competition rather than collaboration. This needs to change, but I do not believe that, as drafted, the Bill alone will achieve that level of change. If we are adequately to integrate public services in a locality, all public service providers and partners have to build co-operation into everything they do. A later amendment in my name seeks to impose a duty on all local public partners to do just that. But alongside that kind of duty we also need to put in place local accountability—and not always accountability to the centre, which has been the model we have followed for so long. We need more local accountability to ensure that genuine co-operation does take place, so that services are delivered which are actually recognisable to ordinary local people and which meet their needs effectively.