Select committee recommends s151 review
0The role of section 151 officers should be scrutinised as part of a government review instigated due to worries over the system for local government spending scrutiny, according to MPs.
The Communities and Local Government Select Committee today released a report claiming that ministers cannot be sure that money spent under new flexible funding arrangements are achieving value for money.
The committee’s report welcomed a commitment it said it had been given by the Department for Communities and Local Government to review the mechanisms for assessing the outcome of non-ringfenced spending.
The report said: “The department expects that a combination of factors: the ‘best value’ duty, the work of local auditors, scrutiny committees of councillors and the statutory role of local authority section151 officers, will ensure that local authorities make decisions which constitute value for money locally.
“However, the department has not assessed whether the local accountability system operates effectively in practice.”
In 2013-14, the government gave local authorities £36.1bn, of which £32.9 bn had no specific conditions (‘ringfences’) as to how local authorities could use it, other than that spending was lawful, the committee said.
The government says that its assurance arrangements are aimed at balancing the tension between giving local authorities greater flexibility over funding while providing assurance to Parliament.
But the committee said: “There are concerns over whether the new arrangements for the audit of local authorities provide sufficient assurance and whether scrutiny arrangements are independent of partisan politics.”
It added that local councils dominated by one political party may not be subject to sufficient scrutiny from opposition members. Councillors may also lack the skills and time to sufficiently analyse data from officers, the report said.
In addition, government measures to open up council spending to the public may have failed to have had the desired effect, the committee said.
“Often this data is presented in a way which makes easy and effective scrutiny by the public very difficult.
“We are also concerned that the public might be less engaged with decisions on services that are significant in terms of expenditure, but do not affect them directly, such as adult care and children’s services.
“The department expects that greater transparency of information will empower ‘armchair auditors’ to hold local authorities to account, but there is no evidence that this has actually happened.”
The committee report also raised worries that new service delivery mechanisms, including local enterprise partnerships and health and wellbeing boards, had unclear accountability arrangements.
“Lines of accountability run from these bodies to different government departments, which can obscure who is accountable overall for the use of the funds and potentially undermine the drive for local integration and joint working,” it said.
The Communities and Local Government Select Committee today released a report claiming that ministers cannot be sure that money spent under new flexible funding arrangements are achieving value for money.
The committee’s report welcomed a commitment it said it had been given by the Department for Communities and Local Government to review the mechanisms for assessing the outcome of non-ringfenced spending.
The report said: “The department expects that a combination of factors: the ‘best value’ duty, the work of local auditors, scrutiny committees of councillors and the statutory role of local authority section151 officers, will ensure that local authorities make decisions which constitute value for money locally.
“However, the department has not assessed whether the local accountability system operates effectively in practice.”
In 2013-14, the government gave local authorities £36.1bn, of which £32.9 bn had no specific conditions (‘ringfences’) as to how local authorities could use it, other than that spending was lawful, the committee said.
The government says that its assurance arrangements are aimed at balancing the tension between giving local authorities greater flexibility over funding while providing assurance to Parliament.
But the committee said: “There are concerns over whether the new arrangements for the audit of local authorities provide sufficient assurance and whether scrutiny arrangements are independent of partisan politics.”
It added that local councils dominated by one political party may not be subject to sufficient scrutiny from opposition members. Councillors may also lack the skills and time to sufficiently analyse data from officers, the report said.
In addition, government measures to open up council spending to the public may have failed to have had the desired effect, the committee said.
“Often this data is presented in a way which makes easy and effective scrutiny by the public very difficult.
“We are also concerned that the public might be less engaged with decisions on services that are significant in terms of expenditure, but do not affect them directly, such as adult care and children’s services.
“The department expects that greater transparency of information will empower ‘armchair auditors’ to hold local authorities to account, but there is no evidence that this has actually happened.”
The committee report also raised worries that new service delivery mechanisms, including local enterprise partnerships and health and wellbeing boards, had unclear accountability arrangements.
“Lines of accountability run from these bodies to different government departments, which can obscure who is accountable overall for the use of the funds and potentially undermine the drive for local integration and joint working,” it said.
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