By Richard Johnstone in Brighton | 25 September 2013
Public accounting and audit reforms will be required if moves to devolve more responsibility for public services to councils are to be successful, shadow local government secretary Hilary Benn has said.
Speaking at the launch of Labour's Local Government Innovation Taskforce at the party’s conference in Brighton last night, Benn said there was ‘a tide’ moving in favour of greater devolution to town halls in England.
‘I don’t believe that you can continue to run everything from the centre,’ he said. Among the services where Labour would seek to empower councils were back-to-work schemes such as the Work Programme, and co-commissioning of health and social care services in the NHS.
Benn said the case for re-examining how services were delivered ‘in an era of less money’ was very powerful. Such a change could lead to an innovation ‘explosion’ across local authorities, particularly if councils were freed from thinking ‘what is the government asking us to do next’.
However, he added that attempts to devolve more powers could be stifled by civil servants concerned that they would continue to be held accountable for spending by Parliament.
‘As well as changing the relationship and the powers, we need to change the culture so that responsibility rests with those taking the decisions, but accountability [also] rests with those taking the decisions, and audit rests with those taking the decisions,’ he told delegates.
‘I promise you one of the reasons why Whitehall civil servants are reluctant to let go of the money is – if they’re going to continue to be held to account for its use through the Public Accounts Committee – you bet they’re going to create strings to hang on to how that money is used. Therefore how public money is held to account in the form of audit must move down to the local level.’
Hackney mayor Jules Pipe, who also chairs London Councils, is a member of the innovation taskforce. He said there was a need for a new inspection regime for local government finance to replace the Audit Commission. The government is in the process of abolishing the spending watchdog after outsourcing its local government audit contracts.
Pipe said there should be three ‘pillars’ of local government inspection – children's services, adult services, and finance and governance.
Following the abolition of the Audit Commission ‘we have no-one keeping score anymore’ on the last tenet, he said.
‘I think we are going to see authorities slide into difficulty quite unnoticed,’ Pipe warned.
‘I think this government began with some hubris about “it would be alright if a few go to the wall, it would be a warning to the others, we can afford it”. But as some start going that way in slow motion, perhaps near election time, then they might not be so sanguine about it.’
