By Richard Johnstone | 30 January 2015
Local government minister Kris Hopkins has put forward reforms that will make it easier for councillors to scrutinise and approve in-year budget changes.
Hopkins announced yesterday that the Department for Communities and Local Government intended to clarify the existing regulations in the Local Government Act 2000.
Under the plans, council leaders will be required to bring any in-year spending changes to full council for approval if they would cause an authority’s overall budget envelope to be exceeded, or were contrary to agreed borrowing or capital expenditure plans. Alterations would also need to be voted on if they were not authorised by the authority’s executive arrangements, financial regulations or other rules or procedures.
Hopkins said this was intended ‘to make clear the important role of full council in relation to budget setting in non-mayoral cabinets’.
The draft regulations also propose that it will not be the responsibility of a council executive to set charges for parking and waste collection, meaning these will also be subject to greater scrutiny by full council, Hopkins said.
In addition, all council asset sales will need to be approved by the full council if the value exceeds £500,000 under the changes, which are now out for consultation until March 6.
DCLG also proposed that all directly elected executive mayors in local government would now need to publish a ‘mayor’s plan’. This reform, which follows concerns over the transparency of decision making by the mayor of Tower Hamlets, will require mayors to set out set out the policies he or she would wish to implement during their term.
