Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council — House of Commons, 2018-01-25
Topic: Government Operations
Rishi Sunak (Conservative, Centre-right): I am about to come on to the most recent local government peer inspection The £21 million of funding that the Department has provided has supported training and guidance for members and officers, policy briefings and a programme of external peer challenges I will now address each of the points my hon. Friend the Member for Halesowen and Rowley Regis has asked me to respond to. First, on the question of intervention at Sandwell Council, it is important that I take this opportunity to stress that the decision to intervene in a local authority and remove control from those who have been democratically elected is very serious. Only as a last resort would the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government use his powers of intervention, and only where there is comprehensive evidence of extremely serious and widespread systemic failings in a council. Statutory interventions are rare: the powers have been used only twice in the last five years and only six times in the last 15 years I am aware of the allegations that my hon. Friend has outlined today, and of the fact that Sandwell Council has been the subject of extremely negative press coverage that has no doubt undermined public confidence locally and raised serious questions about conduct. I am also aware that, in response, Sandwell Council has recently invited a Local Government Association external peer challenge, which was conducted last week with a team led by the chief executive of Sefton Council. The peer challenge team is due to report back to the council formally within the next week or so. I have every confidence that it will have looked forensically at the council’s strengths and weaknesses and that it will provide clear feedback and robust recommendations. I will be particularly keen to review the team’s conclusions and recommendations, and I am urging Sandwell Council to share them with me at the earliest possible opportunity. I would expect the council to take the results of the external challenge very seriously and to take all action required as a result. I want specifically to address the points raised about councillor conduct, standards and governance. The Localism Act 2011 provides a broad framework for local authority standards, allowing local authorities to tailor their arrangements to meet local circumstances. The Act requires relevant authorities to promote and maintain high standards of conduct by members and co-opted members of the authority. Each local authority must publish a code of conduct that is consistent with the Nolan principles of standards in public life and that covers the registration of pecuniary interests Authorities must make arrangements to investigate allegations of failure to comply with their code of conduct, and in many cases councils have standards committees to undertake that role. If a councillor breaches the code, they can be censured and any portfolio responsibilities or memberships of outside bodies can be removed. The council must consult an independent person before making a decision on a breach of its code of conduct. It is vital that that independence is genuine, so that it can provide proper oversight and good governance. The independent person must therefore be among the electorate; have no political affiliation; have no current or previous association with the council; and have no friends or family members associated with the council. Last week, Sandwell Council recruited and appointed an additional independent person for its ethical standards and member development committee, which is now at its full complement with three independent members and eight councillors. I would of course expect those councillors to take seriously their responsibility to hold their peers to account and provide democratic accountability It is also a statutory requirement for all councils to have a monitoring officer to ensure that the council operates within the law. The monitoring officer’s duty is to investigate concerns about conduct, and they are ultimately responsible for ensuring the genuine independence of members of standards committees. I expect monitoring officers to live up to those responsibilities with the utmost seriousness. A new monitoring officer has been in post at Sandwell since September, and I hope that we will continue to see a change in the council’s ability to get to grips with the long-standing standards issues that have been generating negative attention. I understand that some progress is now being made, albeit somewhat belatedly, on two of the long-standing allegations involving the disposal of council property. As we are aware, there are further allegations that are the subject of a police investigation, so my hon. Friend will obviously understand that I cannot comment further on them. I would encourage the monitoring officer to continue his work in transparently dealing with complaints and allegations and acting without fear or favour My hon. Friend asked about the rules on councillors and bankruptcy. I can tell him that the existing legislation is clear that any individual who is subject to bankruptcy orders is disqualified from standing as, or holding office as, a member of a local authority. As part of local openness and accountability, it is right that the disqualification ceases only when the individual has paid his debt in full. I wholeheartedly agree with the principle that it is important that elected members are held to high standards of conduct in public office. If there are allegations that this law has not been complied with, as has been suggested, I would urge the monitoring officer to investigate The LGA peer challenge and the sharper focus that the council is giving to standards and conduct are important steps in addressing the issues that the council faces. As my hon. Friend has highlighted, however, it is undeniable that Sandwell has had other significant challenges to address in recent years. Since 2010, the council has received attention in relation to its children’s services, with four "inadequate" Ofsted ratings. An independent report concluded that the council did not, on its own, have the capability or capacity to improve children’s services. That led the Department for Education to issue a statutory direction in January 2016, requiring the council to work with an appointed commissioner for children’s services and develop a children’s trust. I hope that the council will work closely with the children’s commissioner, Malcolm Newsam, and the Department for Education to agree detailed proposals about how the trust will work. The Government are committed to working together to make sure that children and families in Sandwell receive the best possible care and support through the new trust In conclusion, as my hon. Friend will be aware, local government is independent of central Government—a principle enshrined in the Localism Act 2011. Through elected councillors—and, where applicable, Mayors—councils are accountable to the communities that they serve, through the ultimate sanction of the ballot box.