Petitions To Local Councils Offer Extra Teeth To USRs

Union Safety Reps and members of the public can now demand their councils take action on public safety issues, drink disorder, anti-social behaviour and other concerns under new rules giving real power to local petitions, announced Communities Secretary John Denham today.

Now where USR's identify that a risk exists to their members, e.g. safe entry to and exit from work being compromised by areas of council responsibility rather than the employer, they can now avail themselves of the option to petition the council responsible. A USR's petition signed by sufficient numbers of the workforce and/or members of the public can no longer be ignored.

The Government announced that it has put in place the legal steps to bring into force on June 15 a statutory duty on councils so they have to respond to petitions for the first time and tell local people what action is going to be taken to address their concerns.

This important step in the Government’s drive to ensure communities receive the high quality local services they are entitled to will mean no council can ignore a petition or put it on the shelf to gather dust.

Every council will now have to set out clearly how local people can submit both paper and electronic petitions. Popular petitions will trigger a debate of the full council or require a senior council officer to answer to scrutiny hearings.

New statutory guidance published today sets out exactly how councils will be expected to respond to all petitions, especially on four key areas.

- On underperforming schools - councils should consider the most effective action including issuing a warning notice to immediately improve standards and could appoint more governors, remove budgets or ultimately consider closure if they fail to comply.

- On alcohol related crime and disorder - in areas blighted by alcohol fuelled disorder, councils should consider making it an offence to refuse to stop drinking when asked by police, or to charge licensed premises for additional policing.
 
- On underperforming hospitals - where communities are concerned about issues like poor hygiene, councils should consider asking their scrutiny committee to investigate, which has powers to review services, request information from NHS bodies, and make urgent recommendations.

- On anti-social behaviour - councils will be expected to consider using the wide range of powers available to them and to work with police on actions such as setting response times for complaints about noise or neighbours

Communities Secretary John Denham said:

"Petitions are an important democratic way to raise concerns that matter most to people. As the locally elected representatives, councillors are there to fight the corner for residents and make sure services are delivered.

The changes we are putting into effect today will activate petitions so they hold real sway - people will know it's worth taking the time to take a stand because it will finally make things happen. For the first time, councils will need to respond to petitions and let people know what they're going to do about underperforming local services."

All councils receive petitions, and some of them deal with them well. However a survey by the LGA found that only 28% of councils guarantee an automatic response to petitions. The petitions provisions will bring the standards of all councils up to those of the best.

Source: NDS

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