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Mr. Ken Livingstone (Brent, East): There is clearly a huge cross-party consensus on this subject. The overwhelming majority of hon. Members believe that
local residents have a right to have delivered, through their letter boxes, a proper analysis of what services their councils provide and how well they do so in comparison with others. That is what the performance indicators are all about. The Audit Commission's various publications are clear and simple to understand. They usually havebar charts so that people can see how their local authority is performing against a comparable local authority serving a similar area.
I wish to speak especially in favour of the amendments which would introduce a real code of practice. Whereas the vast majority of the 450 local authorities operate reasonably honourably and straightforwardly, a small handful of completely corrupt, dogmatic and arrogant local authorities will abuse any system that is placed in their hands. For that small minority, a real code of conduct is necessary. It will come as no surprise to the House to know that my personal experience of what happens in Brent prompts me to speak forcefully about the need for a code of conduct. The Opposition are offering the Government more powers: that must surely indicate the depth of concern that we feel.
In my own local authority area, the council has chosen to report performance indicators by giving the localfree sheet a special deal. The paper appears with a wrap-around bit, like the wrapping around fish and chips, which one immediately discards and moves on to the real fish in the middle. The long-standing local paper, which has been published for more than 100 years, does not get the benefit of that deal because it is often slightly critical of the local authority.
If the council buys the service, it is able to dictate the format of what is provided. When, once a year, I get my copy of the Brent Recorder--which Brent council has paid to report the performance indicators to every household in Brent--it thuds through the letter box. I pick it up and instead of the usual colourful cover there is what looks like half a dozen pages of Hansard--dull, dead type that nobody would bother to read unless they had a severe case of insomnia. I can hear what happens all over Brent. The paper thuds through the letter box, and that is followed by a scrunching-up noise which works its way through the borough as everyone tears up the so-called performance indicator report and dumps it in the bin so that they can read the contents of the real newspaper. Other than people such as myself, who pore over the report to see where the corruption and fraud have been hidden, nobody else in Brent has any interest in it whatever.
The council is prepared to discharge its duty to report in that most minimal way, but it can find thousands of pounds to produce a nice glossy magazine with colour
photographs and endless pictures of the leader of the council. Given what he looks like, that is not necessarily a good idea. The magazine contains wonderful stories about the joys of living in Brent, which imply that everyone in Brent is living on some wonderful tropical island where nobody ever has to work and everyone has a life style like the old Greek gods.
People in Brent pick up that rubbish every few months and they cannot believe the descriptions of the town that they see around them, with garbage in the streets, and so on: we never see a street-sweeper because, as the performance indicators show, that is not Brent's strong suit. The magazine is an attempt to bypass any real duty to report the performance indicators that Parliament has required, with agreement, to be made available so that local residents can monitor their council's performance.
Brent has two local papers--the Kilburn Times and the Willesden and Brent Chronicle, which are part of the same group. Because they report things such as the ombudsman's reports, they are under constant pressure from the local authority. The system cannot operate if the council puts completely unacceptable pressure on well established local newspapers not to report anything that the council does not want reported. I have found it especially offensive that the chief executive of the council has written to each local department head to tell them not to advertise in those papers because they write critical stories about the council.
There are bound to be critical stories about the council. If out of 32 London boroughs, a council spends less on education and social services than every other borough, it will occasionally get a tad of criticism. If, out of the whole of south-east England, including Greater London, Kent, Surrey, and East and West Sussex, a third of all complaints to the local government ombudsman are about one council, that will occasionally get into the local press. I should like to see the code of conduct that we are putting into the Government's hands improved to stop intimidation of the press.
Many local newspapers are always struggling. The threat is issued that advertising will be withdrawn if they print unfavourable stories. That makes a mockery of any suggestion that there can be fair and honest reporting for local people about the performance indicators that the Audit Commission has produced, which no one questions are good guides to relative performance.
The process can be taken one stage further. The current chief executive at Brent, a guy called George Benham, circulated a memorandum--this is no wild, manic rumour of the sort that might be read in Socialist Campaign Group News--to all departmental heads in the borough.I should explain that they are called business units now. There are about 140 such units. I write to what used to be the director of education asking, "Can you get little Johnny into a school?" The reply refers to "the customer". We are dealing with little Johnny, not a customer, and little Johnny wants to go to a school.
We have business units with advertising budgets. George Benham writes to the units telling them,"Mr. Livingstone keeps attacking the council." The atmosphere is fetid. He, George Benham, suggests, "It would be useful if Mr. Livingstone were not invited to any function at which councillors might be present.
Mr. Livingstone's presence is embarrassing to them." That is the climate in the borough. It is one that puts pressure on local newspapers not to report issues such as performance indicators.
What happens if an authority gets away with whatI have described year after year? I reflect on the past five years. There was a Conservative minority administration, which still hangs on by a casting vote. It has managed to hang on to power. It is helped if it can manipulate information. If an authority gets away with that for five years, it becomes extremely arrogant.
The ombudsman is undertaking an investigation. Indeed, 17 investigations are being undertaken by the fraud squad, the ombudsman and the council's internal audit. That is going some when there is a Tory group of only 33. Some of the investigations are multiple. Some councillors are being investigated by the fraud squad, the ombudsman and the internal auditors. Everything is being examined from £75,000 grants being handed out in exchange for support in a local government election down to the small stuff such as local builders being employed to clean a councillor's windows. All this stuff builds up.
At the same time, arrogance increases. There is the example of the AdShop. The issue was discussed in Committee and I was grateful when I was not criticised for raising it. There was no word of support for Brent council from anyone on the Government side. When I reported activities taking place in Brent, no Conservative Member was prepared to stick his neck out by saying, for example, "I am sure that's not true," or to say one word in defence of Brent council. I congratulate the Minister and Conservative Back-Bench Members on their perspicacity and good sense.
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