Pickles attacks LGA

Eric Pickles is interviewed for the House magazine's latest issue and offers the sharpest criticism I have yet seen from him of the Local Government Association.

Rejecting their claims that spending cuts are "unsustainable", he says:

"I kind of understand that the LGA are sort of a trade union organisation..They are the voice of the officer class with the odd politician thrown in as a hostage handcuffed to the radiator and they
occasionally speak.

“The problem is that we’ve had the various stories people crying ‘wolf!’, saying it’s all going to be a disaster. Well actually with two and a half years on local government seems to be coping very well. Satisfaction with local government has actually gone up. It’s a quarter of public expenditure, they’ve managed very well they’ve been very adaptable despite the rhetoric.”

“What they’ve got to do is produce more for less, what they’ve got to do is to address all of the hidden Spanish practices that exist. It is utterly ludicrous that within a few miles of one another there are organisations doing their own payroll, doing their own legal services, having their own planners.”