Wedenesday saw the announcement of the local government funding settlement for 2013-14. As expected, councils across England will be facing even more cuts in their already-stretched budgets, and wondering just how they continue to deliver services in the face of ever-widening budget gaps. (See here or here for examples of how a funding squeeze and rising costs are impacting councils)
Of course, local government should be glad that we have a Secretary of State who understands the issues affecting the sector and is prepared to fight its cause in Whitehall while puncturing some of the myths that are propagated about it. Unfortunately, we don’t have that Secretary of State, we have Eric Pickles instead.
So instead of assistance and help from the Secretary of State, there is instead a hectoring of local government and a stubborn refusal to engage with anything councils have actually done to address the financial crisis. This is exemplified in the list of fifty money-saving ideas (pdf file) the Department for Communities and Local Government have published. This was accompanied by Pickles stating that councils must ‘do every single one’ of these ideas. Yet again, Pickles proves that ‘localism’ is just a sham – even more so than under Labour, his DCLG expects councils to dance to Whitehall’s tune in exchange for funding.
The general consensus from people I know in local government to the list has been ‘but we’re doing all that already!’ The advice is basic and simplistic, the easy salami-slicing cuts like sharing back office functions, hot desking and renting out council property that councils have been doing for years already. It’s also coupled with various items of had-right Tory political dogma that seems to believe councils are wasting fortunes on bottled water, Common Purpose and trade unions. There’s no recognition within that document – or in any of Pickles’ public statements – of how local government functions in 2012, or of the massive financial pressures the sector is facing.
This isn’t a one-off, though. Since becoming Secretary of State, Pickles has shown an unwillingness to accept that local government has changed dramatically since his heyday in Bradford over twenty years ago. Pickles’ pronouncements on local government are those of an attention seeking backbencher or Daily Mail columnist, showing none of the understanding of the sector one would expect from a Secretary of State. What local government needs in times like these is a DCLG that works with it to help lessen the pressure. Pickles’ centralist and dictatorial version of ‘localism’ instead threatens to irreparably damage local government.
* Nick Barlow is a Liberal Democrat councillor for Castle Ward on Colchester Borough Council. He has been blogging at What You Can Get Away With for far too long.
* Nick Barlow has been a Liberal Democrat councillor in Colchester since 2007, as well as being a researcher and teacher in the School of Politics and International Relations at Queen Mary University of London. He writes about liberalism and many other things at https://medium.com/@nick.barlow
Follow @LibDemVoice on Twitter
Like us on Facebook
Subscribe to our feed
Sign-up for our daily email digest
Maria Jones from The Box of Delights would agree that Die Hard is a Christmas film
Number 12: The Innocence Mission - Black Sheep Wall
Lib Dems see off Reform in Barnsley with double their vote
Cleanliness at Harris Academy swimming pool #dundeewestend
Welsh councils still facing financical difficulties
Ken Westmoreland
David Rogers
Peter Martin
Tristan Ward
10 Comments
I agree that Councils are doing this things already. In defence of Eric Pickles (not something I think I have ever said before) idea 22 appears may be the answer:
“22. Cut senior pay: The local government Transparency Code opens up middle management and senior pay to greater public scrutiny, and the Localism Act allows councillors via Full Council to set local ‘pay policy statements’ to get senior pay and perks (as well as pay offs) under control. Councils can lead from the top by having their chief executives take a pay cut. Ministers have taken a 5% pay cut and frozen their pay for five years. Chief executives can do the same.”
I think sooner or later Councils to survive will have to radically change staffing structure to a more flat structure removing senior management pay levels to reduce total cost of staff pay, as the ones who can most afford wage cuts are clearly the ones paid the most. I think a less hierarchical structure might be the pragmatic answer to squaring the circle of balancing council budgets.
The only thing I object to in this article is the description of Pickles’ shambles of a time in Bradford as his heyday. It might have been his; it certainly wasn’t ours.
Eric Pickles is making cuts in local government that won’t be to the detriment of the tory party electorate; what we will see is that a previously LDP support completely and well and truely wiped out in areas once held such as Liverpool.
Well, thank goodness Lib Dems are part of the government and can reign in these destructive excesses.
Pickles, the man who wrecked Bradford with his ideas.
if you read his 50 ideas he’s actualy taken most of them from local government, apart from hus usal nutty ones of slashing pay and curbing unions.
Anyone in a large scale organisation either private or public is well aware of the benefits of full time union officals to deal with issues.
With cuts of 40% some councils will ceased to be effective and whatever to Eric’s idea of Localism
The link to Pickles’ marvellous money-saving ideas doesn’t work.
Simon – that’s embarrassing, have contacted the site editors to rectify it.
Mike – I can’t speak for other councils, but I know one of the features of the reviews we’ve done since 2008 has been flattening the management structure. Though often just because someone has ‘manager’ in their name, it doesn’t necessarily follow that they spend all their time in management duties.
Jennie – It was meant to refer to his ‘local government heyday’, but that didn’t read well. From what I’ve heard of Bradford from you and others, it’s quite rare in having an individual to blame for so many past errors rather than just ‘the council’ generally.
the man must be… well..! ‘Scap Cllr pensions’? they only just started and only for those with a post, not before time. If a diligent cllr is spending 35hrs a week doing the job the least they should provide is a pension and why not a pay-off at the end too.. MPs get both. More to the point would be to set out terms and condidtions of service and a job description, as employment law requires. A job description would lead to getting improved value from the many cllrs who do very little.
cut out free food at meetings? so if you work through your mealtime in the service of the community you are supposed to pay for the privilege? actually it is enshrined in law an entitlement to a meal allowance.. it is actually cheaper for food to be provided..
Shows how much he knows.. and the other items in the article, my former council were already doing..
The link to the document is picking up the URL of this site and making it fail.
The direct link to the document is:
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/39264/50_ways_2.pdf
Thanks for pointing that out. Will fix it.