Pickles on Britishness - condemning hate merchants of the UAF and the EDL

The Communities and Local Government Secretary Eric Pickles gave a speech recently on Britishness.

Mr Pickles noted that the challenges to British values come from different places:

"Here in Britain tolerance, decency and respect for others are embedded deep within our psyche. Our warmth and hospitality, our willingness to welcome other views and embrace other ways of life are what has made Britain a beacon of hope around the world. Now a few voices from the fringes try and challenge those values:

• Whether Islamist preachers of hate peddling a twisted and distorted version of a peaceful faith
• Or whether malicious trouble makers on the far left - a rent-a-mob only interested in stirring up trouble
• Or those on the far-right who try and claim that being a Muslim and being British are incompatible

Each in their own way attempting to corrode and destroy from within with lies, aggression and violence.

These purveyors of hatred are anti-British. 

Pickles is beating the Pilgrims

The Department for Communities and Local Government are pressing ahead with changes that will end the "check off" system - this is the arrangement where instead of trade unions collecting their own subs the Government does it for them via the payroll system. The Public and Commercial Services Union, led by their Trotskyist General Secretary Mark Serwotka, challenged the plan and won on a technicality involving the staff handbook terms agreed by the last Labour Government which will now be changed.

The Mirror has triumphantly reported that the legal action would cost taxpayers £90,000. However they did not report that the PCS still owes the Government money - due a larger unpaid bill from two years ago for costs awarded to the Government after PCS's failed judicial review of the Civil Service Compensation scheme reforms.

There is also good progress being made on cutting "facility time staffing costs" - this is the scandal where staff are paid by the taxpayer by spend their time working as union officials, the "Pilgrims." The saving for the DCLG and it's various agencies will come to £400,000 a year as these posts are phased out.

What Eric did over the summer holidays

The Communities and Local Government Secretary Eric Pickles has offered the following update to Parliament to cover his Department's work over recess:

Supporting local high streets

High streets are the hearts of our communities, hubs of local businesses and drivers of growth.

In order to remain so in the 21st century, high streets must become thriving centres of culture, entertainment and social activity: not just the place to shop but the place to be. They also have to be distinct to be successful and that character can only come from within the community.

This Government are determined to support those local efforts so businesses can flourish and communities prosper by creating the conditions for that to happen following some of the recommendations in the Portas review. Already we have increased the business rates discounts for small shops, introduced planning reforms for the high street; committed new Government investment and set up 350 town teams, which are seeing some great results. Since the summer recess we have taken a number of further steps.

Eric Pickles's end of term letter to Tory MPs

The Communities and Local Government Secretary Eric Pickles has sent the following letter to all Conservative MPs. It provides an excellent summary of what his department has achieved since the last General Election.

Dear Colleague,

Delivering Conservative Policies: Communities and Local Government

As we approach the end of term, I thought colleagues may find useful some examples of the Conservative policies that the Coalition Government has notably delivered to date. We have:

Cut local taxes for families and firms

• Worked with councils to freeze council tax for three years. Under Labour, council tax more than doubled. Under this Government, bills have fallen by 10 per cent in real terms.
• Scrapped Labour’s plans for an expensive and intrusive council tax revaluation, which would have meant soaring tax bills for millions of hard-working families and pensioners.
• Abolished Labour’s new bin taxes on family homes, which would have harmed the local environment by fuelling fly-tipping and backyard burning.
• Cut business rates for small firms and small shops, by doubling their rate relief from 2010 to 2014. As a result, 330,000 small firms are paying no rates at all thanks to this tax holiday.
• Scrapped Labour’s ports tax – stopping unfair retrospective business rates on firms in ports that threatened to decimate those firms and damage England’s whole manufacturing sector.

Axed quangos, stopped waste

• Abolished unelected regional government. The Regional Assemblies, the Government Offices for the Regions and the Regional Development Agencies have been scrapped.
• Cancelled John Prescott’s botched plans for the regionalisation of the fire service.
• Axed the Standards Board, which fuelled petty and malicious complaints against councillors and suppressed freedom of speech in local government.
• As part of the abolition of the Audit Commission, its Comprehensive Area Assessment has been scrapped and its audit contracts have all been outsourced. Councils are already benefiting from an estimated £1 billion of savings over the next ten years.
• Slashed DCLG spending on corporate credit cards from £320,000 a year to just £27,000 a year, with every single transaction since 2006 placed online – exposing Labour’s record of waste.
• Cut the Department for Communities and Local Government’s running costs by almost half – more than any other department. We’ve cut waste, cut staff numbers, cut red tape – and even closed down the Labour Government’s secret pub for civil servants in our basement.

Helped homeowners, supported home ownership

• Kept the cost of mortgages low, thanks to the action taken to tackle Labour’s deficit (just a one per cent rise in market interest rates represents £1,000 extra on every family’s mortgage bill).
• Abolished Labour’s expensive and pointless red tape of Home
  Information Packs.
• Increased Right to Buy discounts to £75,000 (£100,000 in London), reversing Labour’s stealth cuts.
• Supported home ownership and shared ownership schemes, through the FirstBuy scheme – which is now being superseded by the popular new Help to Buy scheme.
• Prioritised Armed Forces for social housing and first-time buyer schemes; given councils greater freedoms to allocate social housing to local residents who work hard and play by the rules.
• Curtailed socialist powers of the state to seize private property (Labour’s Empty Dwelling Management Orders).

Ensured fair play on planning

• Scrapped all of Labour’s Regional Spatial Strategies (in England outside London).
• Given new powers to councils to resist unwanted garden grabbing, protected the Green Belt and introduced a new planning protection for valuable local green spaces.
• Abolished Labour’s Whitehall diktats which forced councils to hike parking charges and which restricted the provision of car parking spaces in new homes and offices.
• Cut planning red tape, making the system quicker, simpler and more accessible to local residents and local firms; we are helping get empty buildings back into use, support home improvements in consultation with local neighbours, and back new and expanded state/free schools.
• Given councils new powers to tackle unauthorised traveller sites and scrapped John Prescott’s planning rules on travellers which fuelled community tensions, including revoking his 186 page guidance on ‘equality and diversity in planning’.

Taken on political correctness and the left

• Allowed councils to disregard a legal challenge by aggressive secularists to stop the long-standing practice of prayers at town hall meetings.
• Told council officers to stop the gold-plating of equality rules, which demanded that local residents fill out intrusive questionnaires about their religion and sexual orientation.
• Backed British values and identity, flying the United Kingdom’s national and traditional county flags; supported teaching the English language rather than translating documents into foreign languages and ceasing to appease non-violent extremists.
• Slashed back trade union “facility time” in DCLG to private sector levels, and published guidance for councils on how they can save money by getting rid of trade union “pilgrims”.

Devolved power down to local communities

• Given councils stronger powers on licensing to tackle the alcohol-fuelled violence that blights our town centres at night.
• Granted councils more financial freedoms to help promote economic growth, through the local retention of business rates and the New Homes Bonus.
• Opened up councils’ books with a new era of town hall transparency, with greater local autonomy for local government being accompanied by stronger local accountability.
• Introduced new community rights to stop the closure of other local community facilities and powers for local voluntary groups to run local services.

We have done a lot, but there’s more to do. We are delivering on Conservative policies and cleaning up Labour’s mess.

I hope this will help your communications with local supporters.

Yours truly,

Eric Pickles,

Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government

Unions protest at Pickles no longer collecting their subs for them

The Public and Commercial Services Union have been distributing this leaflet to advertise a demonstration they are holding outside the Department for Communities and Local Government today.

The protest is prompted by the Communities and Local Government Secretary Eric Pickles ending the arrangement where the DCLG collects trade union subscriptions via the "check off" system.

This meant staff had their union subs deducted by the payroll department and it was handed over the unions.

They also complain that the DCLG's spending on Pilgrims - taxpayer funded union reps has been cut by 805. Also that there has been a 40% cut in admin spending at the DCLG and that there will be a further 10% fall in the DCLG budget by 2015/16.

Eric Pickles, Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, said:

"For too long in the public sector, trade unions have received taxpayer funding that is poor value for money and inadequately controlled.

"Reducing such public subsidies to trade unions is a practical way that councils can save money, to keep council tax down and protect frontline services for local residents - including union members themselves. And my department is practising what we preach to councils.

"Trade union activities and campaigning should be funded through consenting members' subscriptions, not bankrolled by the taxpayer. Freedom from state dependency will mean that trade union bosses will better reflect and respond to the wishes and views of the grassroots members."

Pickles to reward staff with money-saving ideas

The Communities and Local Government Secretary, Eric Pickles, has started a scheme of offering modest rewards - such as shopping vouchers - for DCLG civil servants who come up with innovative, thrifty ideas that saves taxpayers’ money.

Mr Pickles said:

"I want to hear from the bright sparks in the department who, in the years of spend, spend spend, may have felt that their ideas to save, save, save fell on deaf ears. I want to tap into their expertise and insight, shaving pounds off the balance sheet and saving taxpayers’ money. I want to change the culture of the Civil Service: rewarding people for taxing, regulating and interfering less in other people’s lives.

"Providing incentives to staff to flag up sensible money saving ideas is the latest in a long list of sensible measures taken by the department to drive down costs and reduce waste, including clamping down on the use of corporate credit cards.

"In recent years the department has also slashed spend on senior civil servants’ bonuses, making significant savings. In addition the department’s relocation to share the Home Office building and the scheduled re-let of the IT contract will result in additional multi-million pound reductions in spending."

This is an example that local government should follow. Councillors will tend to be in contact with senior council managers who come along and present reports at committee meetings. But that should also be a route for other staff to have their say.

By all means let's also listen to what the unions have to say. Independent, self financing unions have a role to play in this. If they think the bosses are wasting money then that is interesting.

Number 56 in my 100 ways to cut Council Tax without cutting key services said:

Encourage staff to suggest efficiencies. Offer a prize for the best suggestions. But also allow anonymous entries.

If an individual has a good idea then they should be able to offer it direct - not just through their line manager or union rep.

Brandon Lewis is not a fan of the EU

How will the Local Government Minister Brandon Lewis vpte in the EU referendum? A recent question from Andrew Rosindell MP about flags rather indicated that Mr Lewis is not a great enthusiast for our membership.

Mr Rosindell asked that his Department "encourage local authorities to follow the example of Cumberland in raising awareness of their county flags and coats of arms."

Mr Lewis responded that:

Since May 2010, my Department has taken a series of steps to champion the flying of local and national flags across the United Kingdom.

We have regularly flown county flags from outside our offices in Victoria to mark county days or those of their patron saints, and we have explicitly recognised England's traditional counties such as
Cumberland and Middlesex. We have also recognised wider localities, such as the kingdom of Wessex, which was the foundation of the English nation.

Troubled Families programme expanded

The massive extension of the Troubled Families programme is excellent news. Hitherto the target has been to turn around 120,00 families but this has been increased by another 400,000. An extra £200 million will be spent on this payments by results scheme. But talk of "spending" in this context is misleading. These are families that if they are not truned round cost the taxpayer an average of £75,000 a year - not just for welfare but the army of public sector operatives visiting them.

The money is paid out to local authorities by the Department for Communities and Local Government, but is funded from across Whitehall. The Department for Work and Pensions are concerned that the families get off welfare, the Justice Department that they cease being involved in crime....

The idea is a single dedicated worker helping the family. It is what is known as "joined up Government." But there is great scope for local innovation.

Crucially, all of the public services involved with members of a family are coordinated and the demand on them reduced.

Pickles sets out rights for bloggers and journalists to film council meetings

The Comminities and Local Government Secretary Eric Pickles has published new guidance explicitly states that Councils should allow the public to film council meetings.

There is a new guide which gives practical information for the public to attend meetings of a council’s executive and how to obtain council documents. The Government has changed the law to allow citizens to report, blog, tweet and film council meetings in England. It also outlines the assorted rights that taxpayers’ have to access council papers and documents.

However, many councils across the country are still refusing to allow people to film public council meetings. Wirral Council used "health and safety" to justify a filming ban last year.

The new rules from Mr Pickles do not apply to Wales, as they have not been introduced by the Welsh Government who have devolved responsibility. This led to the situation of a blogger being arrested and handcuffed by the police for filming a council meeting in Carmarthenshire. Wrexham council also banned a journalist from the Daily Post from tweeting a council meeting.

Queen's Speech boosts right to buy and tackles Town Hall Pravdas, referendum dodgers and rioters

Councils and housing association should be doing far more to evict tenants engaged in crime or anti social behaviour including rioting. Weakness in this regard is not entirely their fault but also due to court delays.

At least this provision of the Anti-social, Behaviour, Crime and Policing Bill should help a bit:

"Part 5 – Recovery of Possession of dwelling-houses: Anti-Social Behaviour grounds

Anti-social behaviour can have a negative impact on neighbourhoods and communities. Social landlords have a key role in tackling anti-social behaviour. Provisions in the Bill introduce a new ground for possession to speed up the process in the most serious cases of anti-social behaviour bringing faster relief to victims and communities."

Also in the Queen's Speech: