MONDAY 6th SEPTEMBER
H&F Proposals for Cutting Red Tape
Sub Heading
GOVERNANCE 2
PLANNING, LICENSING AND THE ENVIRONMENT 6
HOUSING 15
CHILDREN’S SERVICES 18
HEALTH 23
CRIME AND ANTI-SOCIAL BEHAVIOUR 24
GOVERNANCE
DESCRIPTION OF REGULATION OR BUREAUCRATIC BURDEN / STATUTORY BASIS / PROPOSALSustainable Community Strategy
All areas are required to have a community strategy which expresses the priorities for an area. The production of such as strategy should be at the discretion of the local authority and its partners. / LGA 2000 & LG
Involvement in Public Health Act 2007 / Scrap the requirement and leave to local authority discretion.
Local Area Agreements
There is a statutory requirement to negotiate Local Area Agreements with Government. While the council is of course willing to work with the Police and Health etc to improve the area, this should be developed locally, not imposed from above. The current system is prescriptive and bureaucratic which only adds cost rather than value. / LG Involvement in Public Health Act 2007 / Scrap the requirement and leave to local authority discretion.
National Indicators
While CAA has been abolished it is unclear whether there will be any ongoing requirement to measure performance against any of the National Indicators. While these require considerable work to collect and report, they do generate useful performance information which the council uses to monitor service performance and compare this with other Authorities. / LGA 1999 / Review the National indicators so that only those useful to the majority of councils are collected on a compulsory basis (for benchmarking purposes); others should be discretionary
EU / UK Public Procurement Regulations & TUPE Regulations
ODPM Circular 03/2003 contained a Code of Practice on Workforce Matters in Local Authority Service Contracts. The Code is guidance rather than strict legislation but is followed in almost all Local Government contracts let since this date. Where there was a TUPE transfer the Code sought to protect new employees who joined the workforce when working alongside ex-local authority workers on less favourable salaries, terms and conditions. The intention was to prevent new recruits being hired "on the cheap" thereby creating a "two tier" workforce / The Public Procurement Directive 2004/18/EC
The Public Contracts Regulations 2006 & 2009; Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 2006 / There is little scope for amending either the Public Contract Regulations or TUPE Regulations as they transpose EU legislation into UK law. The TUPE Regulations are not public sector specific and apply to all sectors within the UK.
However, there is scope for making changes to the guidance and code of practice.
Charging and Trading: Section 94 & 95 Local Government Act 2003
These provisions fetter the Council's ability to act commercially. We can charge for discretionary services but we cannot year on year make a profit. In theory this means if the income is double expenditure in year one the service should be free in year 2. On the other hand if we wish to trade with the public/private sector in an area of expertise for profit we can only do so through the process of setting up a company with the attendant expense. The provision also affect the council’s ability to generate income from advertising and restricts building control income. / Section 94 & 95 Local Government Act 2003
Charging powers in the Local Government Act 2006. / Scrap the requirement and leave to local authority discretion.
Local Democracy Economic Development and Construction Act 2009 (general duty provisions)
This is contains a variety of micro-managing and unnecessary statutory duties including:-
· A duty to promote the understanding of the Council's functions and democratic arrangements, how the public can take part, how to become a member and what members do.
· A duty to promote the understanding and knowledge of lay justices
· A duty to have a statutory scrutiny officer
· The statutory guidance on the duty to respond to petitions on councils. This simply serves to standardise best practice. It is estimated that imposing this burden on councils is likely to cost the government in the region of £5m. / Local Democracy Economic Development and Construction Act 2009 / Scrap the requirements and leave to local authority discretion.
Remove all guidance on how to implement statutory duties. Guidance on how to implement statutory duties should be withdrawn. The judgement in relation to the LAML case has demonstrated that it has no legal force. It simply provides cover for lazy drafting of primary legislation. / General / Statutory guidance can be very useful especially when primary legislation is not clear but it should not be necessary.
Requirement to include information about organisational efficiency savings on the face of council tax bills.
Councils agree with the principle of transparency and sharing this information but compelling them to publish information in this way is not the best way to achieve this outcome. Councils should be free to provide this information in a way that they saw fit to communicate effectively with local people Government has to date spent £10m funding this requirement. / The Council Tax and Non-Domestic Rating (Demand Notices)
(England) (Amendment) Regulations 2008 / Allow for local decisions to be made locally on dissemination
Secretary of State consent
There are a large number of provisions in primary legislation requiring councils to seek consent of Secretary of State for actions and decisions. For example this includes 6 separate sets of provisions in relation to some aspects of social housing finance and management alone.
Councils are better placed to make judgements about local circumstances and are subject to multiple accountabilities – through the ballot box, via the Audit Commission, the Local Government Ombudsman and judicial review. / General / The number of statutory provisions requiring councils to seek ministerial consent should be established and significantly reduced.
Burdens created by government relating to grant conditions and oversight.
These are rarely consistent and often disproportionate to risk. For example the cost of providing detailed ‘assurance’ by the Audit Commission on 28 different types of grant claim to certify that the grants were applied to the purposes for which they were intended found that:
· 9 required no adjustments at all -checking this incurred a cost of £1.25m to the tax payer;
· for a further 9 grants the fees charged by the commission to check was higher than the adjustments necessary – this cost the tax payer £12m;
· in 8 cases the total adjustments were less than 0.5% of the total grant claimed – at a cost of £12m to the tax payer; and
· in only one case were the adjustments substantial in absolute terms and in relation to the cost of the audit. / General / We would like to see a more proportionate approach to assessment duties on local authorities.
Remove the requirement for Equality Impact Assessments and gender equality schemes
There are numerous equality laws which impose the burden on councils of conducting impact assessment for policies and services / Equality Act 2010 / The coalition government is proposing to remove the requirements for both equality impact assessments and gender equality schemes from April 2011.
Employment Relations: Dispute Resolution
Regulations for dismissing employees are excessively bureaucratic. Business is being faced with an excessive number of claims for unfair dismissal in Employment Tribunals – often in situations where the ex-employee’s performance or behaviour was clearly below the standard required. / Employment Act 2008 / To simplify the employment process, wherever possible taking it out of the complex legal process.
Employment Relations: Unfair Dismissal
the processes associated with terminating employment are hugely complex. In cases where the employee’s performance is demonstrably well below what is required, it should be possible to dismiss the employee in a shorter time period and without the full complement of rounds of discussion that are currently required. / Employment Act 2002 / 2008 / Find a way of simplifying the system, especially in cases where the employee’s performance is undeniably below-par.
Cabinet Key Decisions – Access to Information
Remove the requirement in the Local Government (Access to Information)(England) Regulations 2000 which prevents cabinet members discussing a key decision with officers present within 28 days of that decision being taken. This causes unnecessary delays and serves no useful purpose. / Local Government (Access to Information)(England) Regulations 2000 / Remove the requirement which prevents cabinet members discussing a key decision with officers present within 28 days of that decision being taken.
Statutory Sick Pay
The complexity of the SSP system makes an excessive amount of extra (non-productive) work for small business. / Employment Act 2002 / Simplify the SSP system
Remote Working Regulations
A modern economy needs more flexible home and remote working and the rules currently in place are more onerous than is necessary or desirable. / The Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974;
The Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999. / One way forward would be to remove employers' responsibility for health and safety
for office workers remotely. While office-based workers can be monitored, but this
requirement is not reasonable for remote workers.
Freedom of Information
To review the FOI process, which requires massive resources to administer to the timescales and requirements set out by legislation. / Freedom of Information Act 2000 / Review the requirements enshrined in the FOIA 2000.
PLANNING, LICENSING AND THE ENVIRONMENT
DESCRIPTION OF REGULATION OR BUREAUCRATIC BURDEN / STATUTORY BASIS / PROPOSALLocal Development Framework
It is of course important to regulate planning, but the LDF is complex, over-prescribed and places a huge and expensive burden on local authorities in terms of the development of strategies and plans and consultation and inspection. This adds to the cost of development. / (i) Town and Country Planning Acts and Regulations
(ii) Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004:
Planning Policy Statement 12
(iii) General Permitted Development Order / We need more autonomy and fewer stages of central approval
Sustainability appraisal of LDF documents
The arrangements currently made for sustainability assessment are unnecessarily complex and often tend to generate long, turgid documents that add little to the process. There is also the risk of overlap with Equality Impact Assessments and other non-statutory assessments, eg Health Impact. One regime would be more appropriate. / Town and Country Planning Acts and Regulations / The requirements could be substantially simplified, with the level of detail commensurate with the complexity of the document. Simply include as an appendix of evidence as part of the LDF and not a document in its own right.
Evidence base for LDF documents
Planning policy should be underpinned by solid evidence, but the evidence base needs to be proportionate. Certain aspects of it (such as strategic housing market assessments) have got out of proportion to the added value they bring to policy. / Town and Country Planning Acts and Regulations / The range and detail of evidence requirements needs to be revisited, especially, in a situation where local planning authority budgets are under extreme pressure.
Binding Inspector's report
Inspector's Reports should not be binding. / Town and Country Planning Acts and Regulations / Local authorities should be able to disagree provided proper planning reasons are given. This is what happens with the Mayor of London’s London Plan – why not with Core Strategies?
Supplementary Planning Documents
These are over regulated, requiring two stages of consultation. / Town and Country Planning Acts and Regulations / Consultation should be for local planning authorities to decide subject to meeting a basic minimum.
Annual Development monitoring reports
These are supported, but is all the detail required in them strictly necessary? / Town and Country Planning Acts and Regulations / Reduce level of detail.
Local Development Schemes
These tend to be unnecessarily detailed when a much simpler document (that is, “this is what we are going to do and this is when we will do it”) is all that is needed. The approval process is also unnecessarily long winded. / Town and Country Planning Acts and Regulations / Simplify requirements.
Local Development Framework Statement of Community Involvement
Is it necessary for this document to be subject to Regulations setting out how it should be prepared? / Town and Country Planning Acts and Regulations / Remove regulations concerning how this is prepared
Submissions accompanying planning applications
A considerable quantity of information is required as part of the previous Government’s validation checklist. Some improvement resulted from new guidance introduced in March 2010, but at the same time this reduced the flexibility to correct any problem of missing information after registration. There must be scope to reduce this burden further, without prejudicing the processing of the application. Additional burdens are also being created, especially for smaller‐scale applications, by the growing nature conservation requirements relating to protected species. / Town and Country Planning Acts and Regulations / Reduce further the extent of information required to accompany planning applications as appropriate to scale and nature of application.
Local newspaper advertising: Remove the requirement to advertise planning applications in local papers
Some dozens of statutes require the publication of notices, each contains its own clause and not all provisions are the same. London Borough of Camden when granted an exemption on this duty saw an 80% reduction in advertising and publication costs from £30,000 to £5,700 through using other means to advertise planning applications. The savings have been channelled into education and dissemination programmes for planning particularly in disadvantaged groups. / Town and Country Planning Act 1990 (Control of Advertisement) Regulations / Remove the requirements to advertise in newspapers and require or allow publication on council websites
Multiple regulatory regimes
There are a number of areas (Houses in Multiple Occupation are one in which the government has recently taken an interest) where planning controls operate alongside other regulatory regimes (either within the local authority itself or in other agencies, such as the police). / Town and Country Planning Acts and Regulations / Investigate scope for simplifying or unifying these regimes, to the mutual benefit of the regulators and those who are regulated?