The purpose of the report is to distil experience from this parliament and to assist the new committee in the next parliament. It considers how the Committee approached its work, the way it has used research and how this might be strengthened, and its own assessment of performance against the core tasks set by the Liaison Committee. It then suggests some matters the new committee might consider examining in the next Parliament. These include both 'unfinished business', topics the Committee looked at over the Parliament to which the successors might wish to return, and new developments, which the Committee considers will emerge as major issues over the next five years.
The Assembly's main job is to hold the Mayor to account. But he can appoint Assembly Members to his cabinet while they continue to sit in the Assembly. The Report asks how the public are supposed to disentangle a situation in which an Assembly Member can hold the executive to account in one area while working on behalf of the executive in another. As a further example of inconsistency, the Report questions why Assembly Members can sit on some GLA London-wide executive bodies but not others. For example, eight Assembly Members can sit on the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority but no Assembly Member is entitled to join the Mayor's Office for Policing and Crime. The Mayor must be held to account for the substantial powers invested in him and the London Assembly is the right vehicle to do this, but not in its current form. The Report recommends that the Assembly should be given the power to: call in mayoral decisions; amend the Mayor's capital budgets as it can his revenue budgets; reject the Mayor's Police and Crime Plan on the same basis as it can other mayoral strategies; review and, if necessary, reject the Mayor's appointment of any Deputy Mayor. In addition Assembly members who join the Mayor's cabinet or sit on GLA boards should be required to give up their Assembly membership and the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority should be reconstituted along the lines of the Mayor's Office for Policing and Crime
Community Budgets are demonstrating their potential to deliver cheaper, more integrated and more effective public services. They are at risk, however, of being replaced after a few years if key issues are not resolved. If this opportunity is missed, the Committee warns that local services could come under unsustainable pressure in the face of increased demand and reduced budgets. This in turn may result in more spending later on judicial and emergency health and welfare interventions. The Government should send a clear message that it will assist every local authority wishing to introduce Community Budgets and to set out the specific assistance it will provide them with. Furthermore, the programme of pilots must not be allowed to slow progress towards wider implementation. If they are to succeed, public service providers and local authorities must realise investment in Community Budgets will bring them benefits. Local authorities, their partners, and central government should, therefore, develop a framework for agreements on how the benefits of investment are to be shared. On the Troubled Families Programme, the Committee is supportive of the work being done but highlights the need for greater focus on how work with these families will continue after the programme ends in 2016. Noting that the resources available have not increased in proportion to the number of families added to the programme in June, DCLG needs to monitor carefully progress and provide more resources to local authorities if necessary
In 2012 the House of Commons introduced a new 'core task' for all select committees that focused on public engagement as a distinctive and explicit factor of their work. This report focuses on how the select committees have responded to the new core task. Three core conclusions emerged: a) there has been a significant shift within the select committee system to taking public engagement seriously and this is reflected in many examples of innovation; b) this shift, however, has not been systematic and levels of public engagement vary significantly from committee to committee; and c) a more vibrant and systematic approach to public engagement is urgently needed but this will require increased resources, a deeper appreciation of the distinctive contribution that select committees can make and a deeper cultural change at Westminster. This report therefore details innovations in relation to the use of social media, the structure of inquiries and innovative outreach. Public engagement has not yet been fully embedded into the culture of parliament but there is evidence of significant 'cracks and wedges' that can now be built-upon and extended during the 2015-20 Parliament. Clearly the focus of the committee and the topic of the inquiry will have some bearing on the approach to engagement adopted but a more expansive and ambitious approach across the board is to be encouraged. This report leads to a ten-point set of inter-related recommendations but they can all be connected in the sense that the existing social research demonstrates a clear desire on the part of the public to 'do politics differently'.
The draft Bill and White Paper were included in Cm. 7342-I,II,III (ISBN 9780101734226) which follows the Green paper issued in July 2007, Cm. 7170 (ISBN 9780101717021) and various other Governance of Britain papers
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