PLC Public Sector reports:
Local authorities will be interested in the following bills from the government’s final legislative programme outlined by the Queen in her speech today.
- The Child Poverty Bill which is intended to put into law the Government’s commitment to end child poverty by 2020 and will impose a duty on local authorities in England to deal with the problem of poverty. Some parts will also apply to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
- Pupils and parents will be offered guarantees for standards of education in the proposed Children and School Families Bill. Under the bill, schools will be given report cards and primary schools will have greater flexibility to set their own curriculums. There will also be guarantees of extra tuition for those pupils who fall behind with support for gifted and talented learners and all young people will receive at least one year of sex and relationships education. The bill will implement a registration and inspection scheme in relation to home educators.
- The Crime and Security Bill will introduce mandatory assessments of parenting needs when 10 to 15-year olds are considered for an ASBO. All wheel-clamping businesses will be subject to compulsory licensing.
- The Equality Bill has been held over from the last Parliament. In addition to imposing a duty on the public sector to narrow the gap between rich and poor, the bill proposes public bodies should use £200 billion of public procurement deals at their disposal to press for equality in private sector firms.
- Under the Flood and Water Management Bill, local authorities will have responsibility to deal with surface water flooding in their area.
- The Personal Care at Home Bill guarantees free personal care in their home for the most vulnerable people with critical needs. Currently those people receiving social care at home have to have savings of less than £23,000 to qualify. The inclusion of this bill has prompted press speculation that the bill has been drawn up with a view to next year’s election given that the Government is already consulting on a much wider reform of social care. Clearly local authorities will need to be properly funded in order to provide this care.
Although the proposed bills suggest a full legislative programme, the reality is that there will be insufficient time for many of the planned bills to become law given that an election has to be called by June 2010. It will be interesting to see which of the proposed bills make it into the statute books.