HC Deb 09 December 1949 vol 470 cc2308-18

2.50 p.m.

Mr. Eric Fletcher (Islington, East)

I should like to raise a rather different subject, and one which I do not think, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, you will have any difficulty in recognising as being in Order. The subject which I wish to bring to the notice of the House does not concern any matters involving legislation.

I want to put forward certain suggestions with regard to the broad subject of local government manpower with a view to suggesting improvements that can be made in the sphere of administrative action without any resort to new legislation—improvements which, I submit, will lead both to very considerable economies in the field of Civil Service administration and local government administration, which economies will be accompanied by no loss of efficiency but, on the contrary, will lead to a greater efficiency than exists today in the administration of those social services which are the responsibility partly of certain central Government departments in Whitehall and partly of local authorities of one kind or another.

I do not think it is necessary to emphasise what I believe is common knowledge, that there is an increasing number of administrative and technical staff engaged in almost every sphere of local government and in those branches of the Civil Service, such as the Home Office, the Treasury, the Ministries of Health, Education, Transport and Town and Country Planning, which directly or indirectly are concerned with Government services locally administered. I would go so far as to suggest that in the field of local government the most pressing problem today is not the question of the redistribution of local government boundaries or the re-distribution of the powers of local authorities, both of which matters will require the attention of the House in due course and will require legislation.

The matter of immediate concern to which the Government should give, and I believe are giving, appropriate attention is the relationship between central Government departments and local government authorities throughout the country. This system has grown up over a period of years and there are historical reasons for it, but I believe this system today involves an unnecessary duplication of technical and administrative staff, both centrally and locally, is out of date, unnecessarily costly, and could with advantage be very considerably reduced. I think the House will appreciate the size of the problem if I remind hon. Members that whereas the number of non-industrial persons employed in local government in 1939 was 846,000, that figure rose to 1,028,000 in the year 1947. These figures, which are taken from the officially published statistics, are strictly comparable. They exclude trading services like buses, trams, gas and electricity, but they include teachers and nurses.

Mr. Skeffington-Lodge (Bedford)

Does my hon. Friend think that the figures he is quoting show an excessive increase, having regard to the extra administrative burden on local authorities and on the central Government arising from the expansion of the social services? The increase does not seem to me to be very large.

Mr. Fletcher

The most notable fact is the modern tendency to deprive local authorities of various services, and what I think is most remarkable—and I think it will be borne out by any Member in this House with experience of local authorities—is that the administrative, clerical and technical staffs tend to increase notwithstanding the fact that during the last few years local authorities have been deprived of various services.

It is often a matter of complaint by local authorities that various social services are being taken away from them. It is, no doubt, remarkable how many important social services formerly administered by the local authorities are no longer administered by them. One could instance hospitals, public assistance, transport, gas and electricity and trunk roads—the latter now administered by the Ministry of Transport. Soon rating will disappear from the sphere of activity of local authorities and will pass to a central organisation. Other spheres of activity which local authorities might legitimately expect to have been entrusted to them, such for example as civil airfields, the responsibility for the location of industry or the laying out of new towns, are entrusted to Government departments.

Mr. Skeffington-Lodge

While I agree with some of the points which have been put by my hon. Friend, I hope he will take into account the extra administrative burden laid on local authorities, such as food, petrol and coal rationing, which have all inevitably led to a great increase in administrative staffs.

Mr. Fletcher

There are many aspects of this problem and I have time only to deal with some of them. On the general question to which my hon. Friend has referred, I could not do better than quote from the words of Professor Robson, a well known authority on all matters relating to local government. A year or so ago he published the second, edition of his book entitled "The Development of Local Government," the first edition of which appeared in 1931. In the second edition he said: In 1931, when this book was first published, I was able to refer in the preface to ' the immense and growing importance of local government in the life of the nation.' Today, it is unhappily necessary to record its rapidly declining significance in the policy of our country. How and why has this deplorable result occurred? The short answer is that local authorities are being denuded of their functions in consequence of the transfer of services to the central government or to ad hoc bodies appointed by Ministers. Accompanying this curtailment of functions is an immense increase of central control over the remaining duties of local authorities. It is no exaggeration to say that local government is facing a crisis of the first magnitude. I do not want the House to think that I necessarily share the sentiments there expressed by Professor Robson. The point to which I want to draw the attention of the House is that, in so far as there has been a reduction in the activities of local authorities, it is reasonable to expect that there should be a reduction in their general overall administrative expenditure. I ask the Government spokesman who will reply if the Treasury will not only direct their attention to simplifying the existing system of control by central government over local authorities, but will also initiate steps to see that in local authority administration throughout the country there is something of the same nature as the Organisation and Method Division in the Civil Service to see that the activities, the methods, the procedure and organisation of local authorities are brought into line with modern conditions.

One of the complaints made is that where local authorities find themselves in a state of expanding activity, new staff is taken on, quite rightly, to deal with those services but, when one comes to a period of contraction, it is less easy to observe that the corresponding reductions are being made.

We all support the exhortations that are being repeatedly made by Government spokesmen to those in industry and to the people of this country for harder work, greater output, and more efficiency, but I believe that those appeals would meet with a readier response if the Government demonstrated that within their own sphere they were doing everything possible to put their house in order, both with regard to the Civil Service and, so far as they can control it—which is to a large degree—with regard to local authority administration.

The present system of almost meticulous control by various central Departments over the expenditure of local authorities, often down to a degree of minutiae which is almost unbelievable, results from the fact that the Government are a large contributor to the expenses of local authorities. The size of that will be appreciated when one remembers that out of the total expenditure of about £540 million by all local authorities for the year 1945–46, no less than £234 million, or approximately 40 per cent., came from the national Exchequer. I ask the House—how does this system of control of expenditure operate? Is it not unnecessarily expensive, does it not involve unnecessary duplication, and cannot considerable economies be made?

Those with experience of local authority administration in, for example, education or housing, will realise the degree of frustration and expense which arise because at every stage a scheme for building of a school or for the layout of a block of flats has to be submitted for approval in detail to the Ministry concerned. The plans, prepared by highly qualified architects of local authorities, are submitted to the central Department and then vetted, and changed—very often, and inevitably so, by less-well qualified architects in the responsible Government Department. One knows the large amount of time which is spent by technical and administrative staff at meetings between local authorities and the central Government with regard to approval in great detail of plans for housing schemes, for schools, and for roads. It is almost impossible, for example, for a local education authority to incur expenditure for the most trivial improvement in one of its schools without plans being submitted to and approved by a central authority.

I do not want to be unduly critical or to give unnecessary examples, but it would illustrate the degree to which the system now operates if I were to quote one illustration, which comes from the Home Office. If a local authority responsible for a remand home wishes to send a child home to its parents for a weekend at a cost of, say, 10s., it has to obtain prior approval from the Home Office. Correspondence passes between the local authority and the Home Office, who consider it their duty to see whether the expenditure could not be reduced by 6d. or even by 3d. before approval is given.

Officials are engaged in this kind of work all over the country. Unnecessary staff are wasting their time in trying to ensure control to that degree of detail of local authorities. The result is that local authorities, with their own highly qualified technical officers, architects, engineers, valuers, lawyers and accountants spend a great deal of their time in consultation with other architects, engineers, valuers, lawyers and accountants in Whitehall on the details of various social services for which the community pay, either as taxpayers or ratepayers, but in which there is at present this duplication of effort and consequent wastage of manpower.

I do not suggest that the present Government have been inactive in this matter. This is not a problem of their creation, but is something which they inherited. It is a result of a system which has grown up over a long period, and I am glad to acknowledge that the present Government have already taken steps to deal with it. On 3rd June, 1947, the Minister of Health issued a circular which contained the following paragraph: It is the desire of the Government to simplify as far as possible the administrative arrangements as between the Government Departments and local authorities. The Association of Local Authorities are being consulted as to the most effective means of securing this object. One must also acknowledge that the local authorities were quick to seize the opportunity provided by that circular. They put forward various suggestions of a body representing all the local authorities in the country. They said that in their view: in the course of years local authorities have been required to sustain a heavy and increasing burden of central administrative control and direction which not only threatens to destroy the local interest and initiative, but has also resulted in an uneconomic disturbance of the balanced use of manpower by unduly increasing the number of people employed by the Government and the local authorities on administration instead of on productive work. Detailed propositions were put forward by the associations with a view to eliminating detailed control at various stages and with the broad general object of securing that once a project had received the general approval of the central Government Department concerned, both in its general and in its financial aspect, the detailed arrangements should be left to the local authorities. If, for example, a qualified architect of one of the municipalities or county councils certified that the architecture and the plans were what he considered right for a school, or whatever was considered, it should not be necessary for another set of architects in Whitehall to make alternative suggestions on architectural detail. Where an authority is engaged on a highway improvement, it should not be necessary for the Ministry of Transport, with their staff, to examine it, approve it both at the beginning, and while the work is in progress and then, at the end, check and verify all the details of expenditure.

The Government have, indeed, proceeded further. At the beginning of this year my right hon. Friend announced in this House the appointment of a Departmental Committee with the duty of reviewing and co-ordinating the existing arrangements for ensuring economy in the use of manpower by local authorities and by those Government Departments which are concerned with local government matters; and to examine in particular the distribution of functions between central and local government and the possibility of relaxing departmental supervision of local authority activities and delegating more responsibility to local authorities."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 8th February, 1949; Vol. 461, c. 33.] I hope the Minister will be able to tell us this afternoon that substantial progress has been made by the Committee and that when its report is available—which I hope will be very shortly—the Government will be prepared to tackle this matter with vigour and determination, in order to see that every possible economy is made in this field.

I am convinced that the necessary financial partnership between the State and local authorities in operating social services could be carried out with very considerable economy. I hope that the Government will not only be able to implement any detailed recommendations which will be made by this Committee, but also announce their intention of taking any drastic measures, if necessary, to eliminate meticulous duplications. They will merely at the same time be doing something to remove the degree of frustration which at present exists in local government circles and also introduce very desirable measures of economy. I hope that the Minister will be able to carry the matter one stage further, because I hope that steps will then be taken, either through the media of the local authority associations or otherwise, to induce the local authorities themselves to overhaul their own independent machinery, with a view to giving the maximum effect to any economies that can be made in the general existing set-up.

3.16 p.m.

Mr. Skeffington-Lodge (Bedford)

I had not intended to intervene in this Debate, but because I feel that my hon. Friend has rather overdrawn the picture to some degree I should like to say a word or two. For instance, I do not think that in quoting the figures which he gave to the House he has taken into due account the necessary and inevitable increases in the staffs of local authorities which were brought about during the war years and which it has since not been possible to eliminate in view of the need to continue the rationing of coal, petrol and food.

I agree with my hon. Friend that there is undoubtedly some overlapping of staffs. I also agree with him about the undesirability of taking away functions from the local authorities if that can be avoided. But my hon. Friend did not point out that to set against the loss of some of these functions new functions and new responsibilities are being put on the local authorities. There is for example, the matter of running the national parks, which in its working out and development represents a most important" aspect of our national life.

The unnecessary staffs to which my hon. Friend has referred sometimes exist I feel because the local authorities do not always co-operate as fully with Whitehall as they might. I have come across instances both in my own constituency and outside in which had there been a more wholehearted desire to fall into line with the legislation enacted in this House, various people who are employed could have been dispensed with. To compare one local authority with another will underline the point which I am making. Local pride is something which we should foster; local traditions are something which should be preserved, and speaking as a traditionalist, I am one who very much regrets the removal from the local authorities of matters in which local initiative and local enterprise can in themselves be specifically developed. But I wish to say to my hon. Friend that I think he has given a somewhat one-sided picture of the position. Indeed some part of what he has said may be taken as being rather damaging to the Government, although I am sure he did not mean it to be so. It was because I felt that that interpretation could be put upon it, that I decided to make this short contribution to this Debate.

3.19 p.m.

The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Glenvil Hall)

My hon. Friend the Member for East Islington (Mr. E. Fletcher) has made what is, for an Adjournment Debate, a fairly lengthy speech, in the course of which he has covered a great deal of ground, with three-quarters of which I am, as he would be the first to admit, quite unable to deal, because the points concern either the Minister of Health or the Home Secretary or other Departments. As I understand the position, the only point with which I can deal, and the point to which he returned over and over again, was the simple one of the overlapping of functions between staff at the national Government level and at the local authority level. He is an expert in this field, and he speaks with authority. What he says is quite true. Although it has been going on for several generations, there has been particularly in recent years a shift in the incidence of, at any rate, some of the work which previously was carried out by the local authority and which now, if it was a borough or an urban council, has passed to the county council, or to Whitehall.

As he said, a committee was set up some time ago to consider these and ancillary matters. Representatives of the Departments concerned and of the local authorities have been sitting on that committee. It is an expert committee and I can only regret that this afternoon I have not its report before me. The committee has not yet reported, although we hope that at no distant date its report will be in the hands of my right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer. My hon. Friend will be the first to realise that until we get that report, and until it has been considered, in all its bearings, both inside the Treasury and by the Prime Minister, it is impossible for me either to comment on what it might contain or upon what line the Government may take, either because of recommendations in the report, or in spite of what that report might contain or recommend.

That being so, I am at a disadvantage, and I mean no discourtesy to my hon. Friend when I say that it would have been better if he had raised the matter later on when the report had been considered and when I would have been able to have given him a much longer and considered reply. It might interest him and the House to know that although the report of that committee is not yet in the hands of my right hon. and learned Friend, it was part of the terms of reference of that committee that it should as it went along do what it could to meet many of the points which my hon. Friend has raised, in order to prevent this overlapping of functions, duplication of staff and bottlenecks of one kind and another.

Therefore, I hope he will feel assured that the Government not only have this matter very much in mind, but are actively pursuing such remedies as are open to them. As and when the time comes for that report to be implemented, I hope he will think that the Government have not only faced the difficulties which have arisen and the real problems that undoubtedly exist, but have already done something to alleviate those problems and difficulties; and to prevent the duplication which has undoubtedly grown up between national and local authority.

Lieut.-Colonel Lipton (Brixton)

We are in this difficulty, that it has been announced that this report is not to be published. How, then, will the House be able to know whether, and to what extent, any of the recommendations in that report have been carried out?

Mr. Glenvil Hall

No decision has yet been taken whether the report will or will not be published. It is a report by individuals who are mainly on the official level, and therefore it is not the kind of report normally published as a White Paper or a Blue Book. My right hon. and learned Friend has this matter under consideration, but it has not been decided whether it should be published or not. What I can say to my hon. and gallant Friend is that any action which is taken upon it will most decidedly be made public, and, if someone is so minded, be ventilated in this House.

Mr. Skeffington-Lodge

May I ask whether my right hon. Friend accepts the validity of any of the points I made in my short contribution to this subject or whether they were not appropriate or relevant?

Mr. Glenvil Hall

I am sorry if I did not refer to my hon. Friend. He supported me in such wholehearted fashion that it appeared to me that it would be only painting the lily if I indicated that, of course, I am delighted to have support.

Mr. Fletcher

I should like to put a point to my right hon. Friend and to express appreciation for what he has said. When His Majesty's Government come to a conclusion about the desirability of publishing this report, will they bear in mind that, although all the recommendations of the committee may be carried out by the circularisation of local authorities, they ought not to hide their light under a bushel? I believe, and I gather that he agrees, that considerable economies may result. I hope that the Government will get the benefit of publicity for what they are about to do.