Pickles to consider governance changes at Rotherham as commissioners named
The commissioners sent in this week to run Rotherham Council will be asked for their views on what would be the most effective and efficient form of governance for the authority going forwards, the Communities Secretary has said.
In a written ministerial statement Eric Pickles noted suggestions that Rotherham’s governance could be improved – made more transparent and accountable – if it were changed to the committee system.
However, he will seek the views of the commissioners and be open to representations from the public before taking any steps to implement such a change.
The Communities Secretary named Sir Derek Myers – joint chief executive of the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea and the London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham between November 2011 and December 2013 – as the lead commissioner.
Stella Manzie, former chief executive at a number of local authorities, has been appointed ‘Managing Director Commissioner’. This is a full-time role that is “primarily to address the issues of ineffective officer leadership until a new chief executive is appointed”.
Other appointments see Malcolm Newsam nominated as Children’s Social Care Commissioner and Mary Ney and Julie Kenny nominated as supporting Commissioners.
The appointments follow an intervention package proposed by Pickles earlier this month in the aftermath of Louise Casey’s blistering report into the council.
The Communities Secretary told MPs that he remained satisfied that the council was failing to comply with its best value duty. However, he added that it was “encouraging that the council in its representations wholly accepts the conclusions in the [Casey] report and welcomes the appointment of commissioners”.
Pickles and the Education Secretary, Nicky Morgan, have given Rotherham the necessary directions under section 15(5) and 15(6) of the Local Government Act 1999 and section 497A(4B) of the Education Act 1996 to implement the proposed intervention measures.
These include:
- The commissioners exercising all the authority’s executive functions (i.e. the functions which are the responsibility of the authority’s cabinet) and certain other functions in particular all licensing functions, including taxi licensing, and responsibility for appointing the authority’s three statutory officers (the chief executive, the chief finance officer and the monitoring officer);
- The authority being required under the direction and oversight of commissioners to prepare and implement improvement and action plans;. The authority will have to report on progress every six months;
- An improvement panel or panels, as the commissioners agree, being put in place to hold the authority publicly to account for the progress it makes on securing future compliance with the best value duty and securing that its children’s social care functions are performed to the required standard;
- The authority being required to cease to pay special responsibility allowances to members of its executive whilst they have no functions to exercise.
The directions will remain in force until 31 March 2019 unless the Commuities Secretary considers it appropriate to amend or revoke them at an earlier date.
Pickles told MPs that he expected there to be a phased roll back of powers to the authority “as and when there can be confidence that the authority could exercise a function in compliance with the best value duty, and in the case of children’s social care, to the required standard”.
The Communities Secretary said he was also minded shortly to make an Order under the Local Government Act 2000, as he proposed earlier this month, to move Rotherham council to holding all out elections in 2016 and every fourth year thereafter.
He said he had considered but rejected representations from one of the political groups on the council that the 2015 local elections should be the first all-out elections. Such a change only two months before the elections was “neither practicable nor desirable”.
The Communities Secretary concluded: “Though it is a difficult decision to undertake such a broad central intervention, I am clear that these exceptional circumstances, in which the people of Rotherham have been so profoundly let down by their authority, call for such action. I am confident that the measures which I and my Rt Hon Friend the Education Secretary are taking today will rejuvenate and improve local governance in Rotherham, restoring the faith local people can have in their council.”
He also announced £250,000 in funding over the next two financial years for a service similar to the Risky Business youth project.
The latter had developed a ground breaking approach to reaching out to victims of child sexual exploitation and to collecting evidence about perpetrators, Pickles said, “until the misguided and inappropriate decisions of the council" resulted in its closure.
