Local Government (Conduct of Officers) (Hansard, 25 February 1997)

§ Mr. Chris Davies (Littleborough and Saddleworth)

I beg to move, That leave be given to bring in a Bill to enhance the independence and professional status of senior local government officers by providing for a statutory code of conduct requiring that their advice and actions be politically impartial, and to establish an independent tribunal with authority to investigate complaints made by the public and enforce the code as required, and related matters. The Bill has the objective of enhancing the professional status and protecting the independence of senior local government officers. Let me tell the House why the Bill is necessary.

The work of senior local government officers is of great importance to the communities that we serve. It is the good fortune of many of us to work with officers of a very high calibre. Their role is, of course, different from that of their civil service counterparts. Chief officers do not serve council leaders as permanent secretaries serve Ministers. Instead they are the servants of the entire council: of the controlling party and of the opposition parties alike. They must also be accountable to some extent to the public for the services that they provide and administer.

Chief officers have a duty to give their professional advice impartially, openly and without bias to each and every councillor. It is up to the elected representatives then to make the political judgments, accepting or rejecting the advice as they see fit. The House has recognised that, if the independence of local government officers is not to be compromised, they must be separate and removed from party politics. The Local Government and Housing Act 1989 forbids them from serving in a political capacity on another council. Although they may be members of a political party, they may not hold posts within it.

The Local Government Management Board has published a code of conduct, but it is not statutory and need not even be accepted by a local authority, let alone enforced. Existing provisions are not sufficient to prevent the insidious subversion of officers' independence in councils that are run by one party, of whatever political persuasion, for a great length of time.

Some 70 councils have been run by just one party since their inception in 1974. Thanks to the collapse of the Conservatives in local government, they are mostly Labour-run authorities by a factor of some four to one and they include 22 metropolitan districts and London boroughs. A short distance from my home, I think on the one side of the Pennines of Manchester, Salford and Wigan and on the other of Barnsley, Wakefield and the recently notorious Doncaster.

The party in control can of course be said to command the support of the electorate, but, however good the reasons, where one party is in control for a great length of time, the checks and balances of the democratic process are greatly eroded. The will of the controlling party and the will of the council may all too easily come to be viewed as one and the same thing. There is then an ever present risk that officers will be put under pressure to subordinate their independent judgment to that of the political party in control.

167 At its most vile, I have seen that pressure applied by militant Labour councillors in Liverpool when they gained control in 1983. The atmosphere of a previously balanced and open council was rapidly transformed. Officers were sworn at and ridiculed in public committee meetings by their new political masters. They were physically threatened, I understand, in private. The stress placed on them was immense, and it contributed to the premature death of one at least, whom, I had known and worked with. Many others sought escape by way of early retirement.

That was an extreme example. Much more common is the subtle pressure placed on senior officers because their careers depend on the good will of the politicians who influence the appointments committees, or the chief executive, who may have misplaced loyalties. How can impartial professional judgment be given if it has been privately indicated that an impartial view is not what is required?

A friendly relationship between councillors and officers is of course fine, but each needs to know their role and their place. That is why the growth of what might be termed "a culture of familiarity" at the highest levels can be invidious. A council leader with firm control over the majority group works alongside a chief executive for, say, 20 years. Over the years, they help each other out of scrapes. The one supports the other to fend off criticism. It is not a conspiracy, just human nature, but the divisions between politician and officer are gradually bridged in ways that are in the interests neither of democracy nor of the public good.

The Audit Commission, for example, may publish performance indicators that might prove embarrassing to the administration. The chief executive decides not to place them on the committee agenda for consideration by councillors. The council leader backs him up. It is a matter of, "You scratch my back; I'll scratch yours." Public debate is avoided. Embarrassment is saved all round. At the worst, there is a concentration of power, which is exercised arrogantly and influences officers at every level of the structure. They know that they must bite their tongues and blow no whistles.

The scandals in Doncaster and Westminster exposed by the district auditor occurred only because, at some point, senior officers turned a blind eye to the unacceptable behaviour of some councillors or allowed them to pursue policies of dubious legality. I do not believe that that could have happened if officers had not been expected to toe the leadership's line or risk damage to their careers by speaking out.

I regard the doctoring of officers' reports as particularly malign. When proposals for new legislation are introduced in the House, hon. Members know that many of them have been drafted by civil servants. The Minister who presents the legislation, however, will rightly defend it as his own. The practice can be quite different in local government. A chief officer's report and recommendation to a council committee supposedly represent his or her independent professional opinion, and the controlling party often will make the point that the council pays a great deal of money to employ the person for that advice. In practice, however, the so-called "independent" report may have been politically influenced before it reaches the council, leaving the decision-making process tainted and corrupted.

168 In such cases, the officer's professional judgment reflects nothing more than the wishes of the controlling party or of its leadership. It is a dishonest game of backroom political manipulation—which councillors detached from the leadership may suspect but can rarely prove. Opposition councillors are left complaining of political bias, but they are powerless to act. The public lose confidence in democracy and feel that there is no chance to redress their complaints. To whom could they appeal? The council's monitoring officer is perhaps the chief executive or someone who answers to him. Will he investigate complaints about himself? A behind-the-scenes fix may not necessarily be maladministration, which would rule out the intervention of the ombudsman. Judicial review is possible, but, in most cases, it is too expensive and cumbersome.

I believe that the vast majority of local government officers profoundly resent being dragged into the political process and being told privately—by a politician or a chief executive with misplaced loyalties—what they must say and write when reporting to the council.

My Bill would provide good officers with a cloak of protection. It would establish a strong and legally binding code that places on officers a duty to serve the council as a whole and to exercise their judgment free from partisan influence. It would also forbid discrimination in any aspect of their employment on partisan grounds.

The code would allow an officer to remind councillors or even a chief executive that it is against the law to require officers to protect the interests of one particular group of councillors, or for them to be influenced by anything other than their own professional judgment when preparing reports for the council. The Bill would also provide the code of conduct with some real teeth. It would establish a tribunal with staff who would have the power to investigate complaints made by officers, councillors or members of the public. The tribunal could publish reports requiring that the council demonstrates that necessary disciplinary action has been taken or recommending the disqualification of councillors identified as having put political pressure on an officer.

In practice, I hope and believe that the work of such a tribunal would be minimal. The mere fact of its establishment and the creation of a new code would help to change the nature of local government and allow a breath of fresh air to penetrate some of its more odorous recesses. Decisions affecting local communities should be taken openly and publicly by elected representatives of the community in council chambers and in committee rooms, not in back-room meetings held discreetly in private offices in the civic centre or town hall.

The measures proposed in my Bill would allow local government officers to take pride not only in their professionalism but in their independence. The measures will raise the standard of informed debate on important issues affecting local communities, and improve the quality of decision taking. By more clearly defining the space between the roles—