Legislative Compliance. Local authorities can generally do only what they are expressly empowered to do and when contemplating entering into collaborative arrangements of any kind should be sure of their powers to do so. The Local Authorities (Good and Services) Act 1970 enables councils to provide administrative, professional or technical services to other councils and to other public bodies (but not the private sector or the public in general) and section 1 (3) of the act provides for payment for these services. It should be noted that section 2 (2) requires that the accounts of a local authority entering into an agreement to provide a service under this act include a separate account in respect of the agreement. The Local Government Act 1972 Part Vl of this act gives councils the ability to establish joint arrangements, such as the discharge of a function by another council (delegation) or the establishment of a joint committee. Councils considering a collaborative arrangement such as jointly provided services should ensure and be aware that TUPE will apply if a “relevant transfer” occurs. The councils will also need to carry out their functions in compliance with all relevant statutory requirements and restrictions including: The Data Protection Act Access to Information Act Equalities Legislation Human Rights Legislation Freedom of Information Act Each council may be required to ask the other council for information to enable the satisfaction of a request made upon them under the Freedom of Information Act. The councils will need to support one another in the completion of effective requests under this Act. In addition, each council should ensure that prior to the commencement of the partnership the terms of its registration under the Data Protection legislation with the Information Commissioner enables it to send data relating to the partnership to the other council and to receive data from them and process it for the purpose of carrying out a function of the partnership. Each council has its own partnership protocol/policy/toolkit and each authority should satisfy itself that the partnership agreement satisfies the requirements of such partnership protocol/policy/toolkit. For a partnership to be effective, certain standards of conduct are expected of the individuals in the partnership. The Sevenoaks partnership toolkit incorporates a partnership protocol on conduct and accountability which is a model drawn up by the Standards for England who have invited local government and their partners to use their protocol and either adopt it wholly or adapt it to fit their own circumstances. It is envisaged that each council will be responsible for entering into contracts on behalf of the partnership required for the delivery of their particular function. Every contract for the supply of goods and services for a function of the partnership should comply with the Financial and Contract Procedure Rules of the council carrying out the function and those contracts should be in the name of that council but should confirm that it has entered into the contract on behalf of the councils.
Appears in 2 contracts