Background
Surcharge etc
218.The White Paper Modern Local Government: In Touch with the People(13) set out proposals to repeal the existing surcharge provisions contained within sections 17 and 18 of the Audit Commission Act 1998; these provisions enable the auditor to surcharge councillors for recovery of unlawful items of expenditure. It also suggested replacing the current system of prohibition orders (set out in sections 20 to 23 of the 1998 Act) with advisory notices.
Welfare services
219.The Government’s proposals for a new role for local authorities to take a lead in partnership working to address support needs in the community were set out in the consultation paper Supporting People: a new policy and funding framework for support services(14). The responses to the proposals were published in the paper Summary of analysis of responses to the ‘Supporting People’ consultation document(15).
220.The provisions on welfare services follow the proposals that were put forward in the consultation document. They address a number of issues in the current system of funding:
they respond to the 1997 court ruling on the role of Housing Benefit in funding support services;
they are based on a system of joint commissioning at local level. This will replace current funding arrangements where support is funded through a variety of funding streams;
they allow more transparency about support needs and provision around the country.
221.The new system of funding will clarify what is happening in this area, as well as allowing checks on the quality of support provision.
222.The new powers in Part I facilitate these new arrangements both by ensuring that local authorities have broader powers to provide support services for people who may need them, and by creating a framework for community strategies.
223.The proposals are consistent with the principles of promoting independence, as set out in the White Paper Modernising Social Services(16), and with the proposals for welfare reform set out in the Green Paper New ambitions for our country: a new contract for welfare(17).
Social services functions
224.The proposals for changes to the Local Authority Social Services Act 1970 are consistent with the White Paper Modernising Social Services (see footnote 16).
Recoupment by local authorities of cost of providing day care
225.Section 18 of the Children Act 1989 gives local authorities the power to provide day care for pre-school children and out of school care or supervised activities for children attending school. Local authorities have a duty to provide day care and supervised activities outside school hours for children in need in their area. They also have the discretion to provide a similar service to children in their area who are not in need. These services were to be provided free to parents in receipt of Income Support, income-based Jobseeker’s Allowance, and (prior to the introduction of the Tax Credits Act 1999) Family Credit or Disability Working Allowance.
226.The Tax Credits Act came into force in October 1999. This led to the replacement of Family Credit and Disability Working Allowance with Working Families’ Tax Credit (WFTC) and Disabled Person’s Tax Credit (DPTC) respectively. These tax credits provide working families with income to purchase childcare. It is illogical, therefore, that they should receive local authority childcare free of charge. The childcare tax credit element of WFTC is worth 70% of eligible childcare costs, up to a maximum of £70 a week for families with one child and £105 for families with two or more children. This purchasing power should provide income to local authorities to expand childcare provision.
Prohibition on promotion of homosexuality: bullying
227.Section 2A of the Local Government Act 1986 (inserted by section 28 of the Local Government Act 1988) prohibits local authorities from intentionally promoting homosexuality, from publishing material with that intention, or from promoting the teaching in maintained schools of the acceptability of homosexuality as a “pretended family relationship”.
Maintained schools are defined by paragraph 13 of Schedule 30 to the School Standards and Framework Act 1998 (previously defined by paragraph 63 of Schedule 37 to the Education Act 1996).
Cm 4014, July 1998.
Published December 1998, DSS. Also available on the DSS website (www.dss.gov.uk).
Published July 1999, DETR.
Cm 4169, November 1998.
Cm 3805, March 1998.
