The Eric Pickles agenda emerges strengthened from the local election results

By Tim Montgomerie 
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Last Tuesday Eric Pickles, Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, gave a speech to ConservativeHome's Innovation and Improvement in Local Government conference. Download a full PDF of his remarks.

The speech was a comprehensive account of the Coalition's agenda for local government and, fresh from encouraging local election results, Eric Pickles was in uncompromising mood. He attacked the Left for their scaremongering about cuts. He questioned the tactics of Liberal Democrat councillors who had attacked the Coalition rather than their Labour opponents. Most of the speech was, however, dedicated to how local councils can protect the frontline at reduced cost. Mr Pickles focused on transparency exposing waste, procurement reform, elimination of fraud and merger of council services. Billions can be saved through these efforts, he said. At a time when some Cabinet ministers are under pressure this was a Secretary of State on top form, confident of his agenda and sticking to a very clear roadmap of reform.

Eric Pickles MP: Localism and growth go hand in hand

Eric Pickles MP is Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government.

One of the glories of this country is its fantastic buildings and architecture. You can see our history reflected in our towns and cities through our Tudor Houses, Baroque Cathedrals, to the Victorian Gothic Houses of Parliament. And even more than our famous buildings, we value our own homes. Be it our first one-bedroom flat, a semi detached for a new family or a retirement cottage. Well-designed, sustainable homes and estates are places that we love and stand the test of time.

But today incredibly housebuilding is at its lowest peacetime level since the 1920s. We have a planning system mired in acrimony and bitterness. Thanks partly to a decade of bullying regional bureaucrats imposing housebuilding targets the whole concept of planning is viewed with hostility. It’s not about people thinking ahead and making the right choices for their community. It’s wrangles over individual developments. We have got to a point in our history at which people are in default mode, automatically thinking that anything proposed to be built must ruin the look and feel of the area.

But we need to get the country building again and people backing the right kind of development. The current system is holding back UK growth and jobs. As well as a new generation of would-be home owners. We need to make the system easy to navigate – not a legal maze. Research from Reading University suggests the costs associated with development control are up to £3billion a year. So I’m delighted that last week’s Budget sets out a raft of measures for my department to unblock our complex, costly and adversarial planning system.

In the last five years alone the previous Government spurted out 3,250 pages of national planning guidance that overburdened the system to the point of breakdown. Amazingly Councils spent 13 per cent more on planning last year than they did five years ago, despite a 32 per cent drop in the number of applications received.

Eric Pickles: Labour hate transparency because it exposes the waste and inefficiency of the state

Fifty years ago this month, Mrs Thatcher’s maiden speech introduced a Private Members’ Bill which would ultimately make councils open up their meetings to the press and public. As she argued at the time, “the public has the right, in the first instance, to know what its elected representatives are doing”. That principle is still absolutely true. Today, when the new Government is giving unprecedented power and freedom to councils, it’s more important than ever that local residents are able to keep tabs on what their town hall is up to. The best councils already recognise this, and are embracing a new era of openness and accountability as a way of promoting community involvement, reducing spending and improving services.

I am very keen that all councils follow suit, and have been pushing a whole series of reforms which will open up local councils to greater democratic scrutiny. For example, we’ve encouraged all councils to put their spending online, including details of senior pay and perks. We’re saying that all pay packages over £100,000 should be subject to a vote by the full council; not sewn up behind closed doors. And we are tightening up the rules on council publicity, so that taxpayers’ money cannot be wasted on town hall Pravdas – the likes of Labour’s Greenwich Time and East End Life - which have been unfairly putting the squeeze on independent local papers.

Labour hate transparency as it exposes the waste and inefficiency of the state.

Let's admit it, many Tory councils aren't good enough

Tim Montgomerie

As the video above, from Sky, makes clear some Tory councils are now complaining about the front-loaded cuts being imposed by Eric Pickles. Some will be doing this in order to curry favour with local voters. They'll now be able to tell their voters that "we didn't take these cuts without complaint". Let me add something that Eric Pickles can't say. Although the best Tory councils are brilliant, many Tory councils are ordinary and some are completely in the hands of officers. Councils of all colours have failed to innovate during the good years. They've paid themselves and their officers too much money. They didn't prepare for the rainy day. Sadly there aren't enough Hammersmith & Fulhams, Traffords or Windsor and Maidenheads. The transparency revolution that Eric Pickles and Greg Clark are introducing will, I'm afraid, expose under-achieving Tory councils as well as Labour and Liberal Democrat councils. That may not be in the Conservative Party's short-term interests but it'll, ultimately, be very good for council taxpayers and value for money.

Local Government is full of ambition, leadership and imagination

By Eric Pickles MP.

Over the next few weeks, councils will be putting their final touches to the budgets for the next couple of years.  The decisions they are having to make are not easy.  I am full of admiration for all those councils – the vast majority of councils in England – who are focused on one goal: how best to protect the front line services that the public rely on, despite the tougher financial climate?  The answers that they are coming up with are testament to the ambition, leadership and imagination which represents the best of local government in England today.

But unfortunately at the moment, some councils are getting all the attention for all the wrong reasons – those councils which are taking the ‘slash and burn’ approach.  We need to shine the spotlight much more on those councils who really are doing a fantastic job, no matter how difficult the circumstances.

Take Trafford, for example.  They already have the reputation for being one of the most effective and efficient councils in the country – and have proved that once again with their draft budget.  Thanks to careful planning over the past few years, they are actually able to put more into the services that residents want next year – including more money for vulnerable children, the elderly and volunteering.  But instead of sitting back, they think they can improve even further – saving £4.5 million through smarter procurement, £2.3 million through streamlining the management and back office, and cutting their carbon footprint by 30%.

Leighton Buzzard has also saved money through good housekeeping over the past few years – money which will now be spent improving services for young people, refurbishing a play area and a one-off grant to the local Citizen’s Advice bureau.  Then you’ve got West Norfolk.  In moves which will only help local businesses, they are freezing parking charges for the third year running, and also freezing charges for market stalls.  They have pledged to work closely with the local business community to promote growth and attract investment.  They also want to involve local community groups much more closely in running leisure, entertainment and heritage services.

And everywhere you look, there are councils who are listening to what residents want and concentrating on the services which affect each of us, every day.  Richmond setting aside £500,000 to repair potholes and broken pavements.    Dartford and Sevenoaks working together to protect the weekly bin services.  You’ve got more and more councils putting their spending online – embracing the new era of transparency, accountability, and responsiveness.  More and more councils biting the bullet on senior pay.  More and more councils coming together to share services.  And I’m determined to do everything possible to support them, in every way possible: by devolving power and by offering every council enough money to fund a council tax freeze next year.

It just goes to show that cutting front line jobs and hitting front line services isn’t inevitable– it doesn’t have to be an option at all.  These outstanding councils prove it.  And there’s no reason at all why this sort of transformation shouldn’t become the standard.

Councils must stop wasting money on lobbyists

by Eric Pickles

Today, public sector borrowing stands at £149 billion - and that's got to mean a change in mindset towards public money.  Every part of the public sector has to play its part in cutting the highest deficit in the UK’s peacetime history - and rediscover respect for taxpayers cash rather than assuming it will continue to come pouring in. 

Councils will play a particular role in this.  They spend around £122 billion a year, including £42 billion on buying goods and services.  What they choose to spend their money on can have a huge effect - not just on local public services but on the local economy as a whole.  And every single council taxpayer is going to be looking to their council to make wise and prudent decisions about where their hard earned money is spent.  They will want to make sure that every penny is going on the front-line services they rely on - collecting the bins, keeping the streets clean and safe, maintaining the roads and parks. 

What people absolutely don’t need or want is to see their money being fritted away on projects that don't make a blind bit of difference to anyone's life.  Whether that's some of the ridiculous 'non-jobs' that we hear about, or lavish spending on lobbyists.  This seems so obvious, that frankly, it is shocking to hear there are 100 public bodies, including eight councils and 15 housing associations, still showing up in the latest Association of Professional Political Consultants records as employing public affairs firms.

Councils should not be spending taxpayers cash on bankrolling elaborate lobbying campaigns. Government paying to lobby government is indefensible. It undermines democracy to the level of decisions being made behind closed doors in smoke filled rooms - exactly the sort of corrosive practices which have undermined faith in the political process.  And more immediately, when councils face some difficult decisions about how to spend their money, it is impossible to see how they can justify that kind of spending to the public.  Good luck to any council who tries to explain to local residents why they need to keep this sort of spending going - especially if they then start to hit frontline jobs and services. 

Of course, I absolutely want to hear what councils have to say - but if they want to persuade me of anything they can drop me an email or give me a ring.  I'm simply going to put the phone down to any hired gun lobbyist. 

For any council which fails to get the message, I am determined to see this wasteful practice stop.  I will shortly be publishing new stricter rules on local authority publicity - which will guard against campaigning with public funds and make it tougher for councils and police authorities to employ lobbyists. 

The whole ethos of this sort of lobbying goes absolutely against the new era of openness and transparency which is so important.  It's important to rebuild trust in politics - but also to protect money.  Transparency will expose waste and enable a generation of 'armchair auditors' to see exactly what their council is up to and ensure it represents value for money.  Six months ago, I called on all councils to put their spending over £500 online. More than half of all councils (193) have now got their house in order. But by the end of the month I expect all councils to be up to speed. 

But this should only be the start of councils throwing open their doors.  I can't see any reason why councils shouldn't put details of senior pay, councillor expenses, tenders, contracts and meetings into the open, so that the public can clearly see the decisions being made on their behalf - and challenge them if they aren't happy. 

Yes, there are difficult times ahead for councils and some tough choices.  As I've said repeatedly, there are lots of steps that councils can take - cutting excessive chief executive pay, sharing back offices, joining forces to procure, and rooting out wild overspends, embracing innovation, thinking creatively and protecting the frontline services that people want - before they even start to think about the alternative. 

The standard has got to be more service for less cost, not more cost for less service.  The public expect and deserve nothing less.

The Local Government settlement has protected the poorest communities

by Eric Pickles

The catastrophic levels of public debt have meant tough decisions about reining in spending across every part of the public sector – and councils are no exception.  This week, I told them how much grant they’d be getting over the next two years.  In the run up to my announcement, there had been a lot of unhelpful speculation and scaremongering.

But here are the facts.  Despite the toughest economic circumstances in recent memory, the Government has kept average reductions in spending power down at just 4.4%.  At the same time, we’ve protected the most vulnerable and poorest communities from the sharpest grant reductions.  And we’ve provided enough money so that every council in England can freeze council tax next year without hitting local services.

We’ve done all this by making important changes to the way that councils are funded: paying much more attention to the levels of need in different councils.   We’ve grouped councils together so that councils which are most dependent on government funding were insulated from the sharpest falls.  And the poorest areas, which are much more reliant on central government funding, continue to get the lion’s share of the resources.  People in Hackney, for example, will get £1043 next year, compared with people in Wokingham who will only receive £125 per each.  So any claims that the North has been hit harder than the South are disingenuous – in fact, we’ve gone out of our way to support them by creating a much fairer and more progressive way of sharing the money out.

Before the settlement, a lot of the critics were saying that the reductions were going to be front-loaded and hit councils hardest in the first couple of years.  (Leave aside for a minute the fact that they came up with that without having  any numbers.)  Again, that’s proved to be empty speculation.  What we’ve done is looked at the overall spending power that councils have – including, for example, the money they raise through council tax or NHS support for health and social care.  This is what the Local Government Association asked for – because it’s a much better reflection of what councils actually have in their pockets than just grants.  I’ve provided almost £100 million over the next two years so that no council is losing more than 8.9 % of their spending power – and many are well below that.

This is a long way from the apocalyptic predictions that some people were making.  And this has to be put in the context of this week’s Localism Bill – the most radical shift in power from central to local government in a generation.  Councils will finally have the power, the authority, and the flexibility to respond to local challenges rather than being hamstrung by Ministers.

But at the moment, there’s a huge divide between those who are ready to step up to the plate and those who aren’t.  The most horrifying example is perhaps in Newham.  It was  reported this week that they spent £2000 a pop on designer lights as part of new £111 million luxury offices.  It would be an absolute joke if they weren’t also considering cutting 1600 front line staff.  This is exactly the sort of council excess and waste that has to be a thing of the past.

On the other hand, there are councils who are taking a more thoughtful approach.  Senior staff are taking pay cuts in Pendle and elsewhere; Lancashire is joining forces with BT to deliver back office services like pay and HR, saving the council millions of pounds; and Northamptonshire and Cambridgeshire are similarly teaming up in a move which will save £25 million over 10 years. These are exactly the sort of steps which will help councils focus on the frontline services people need – and I hope more will follow suit.

Localism bill will seek to control town hall pay, introduce elected mayors and give neighbourhoods control over planning

Tim Montgomerie

Eric Pickles' feisty approach to local government will take another step this week when he unveils his localism bill. The draft legislation will require councils to publish limits on management pay. He cannot impose a direct cap but he can impose transparency.

Pickles is concerned that 129 town hall executives earn more than £142,500; the Prime Minister's salary.

Mary Orton of the Association of Local Authority Chief Executives told The Observer that if the PM's salary was to be used as a guide she wondered about the free "add-ons" he received: "Most ordinary mortals have to pay for housing costs after tax. He gets two houses for free."

According to The Sunday Telegraph the bill will also see the end of Regional Development Agencies and moves to give twelve major cities directly-elected mayors. The cities are set to be:

1. Birmingham
2. Bradford
3. Bristol
4. Coventry
5. Leeds
6. Leicester
7. Liverpool
8. Manchester
9. Newcastle-upon-Tyne
10. Nottingham
11. Sheffield
12. Wakefield

Decentralisation minister Greg Clark previews the new power for neighbourhoods to take control of planning in their area. They will be able to decide the boundaries of their locality and then by local referenda choose a code for local building. Once this code was established residents would have freedom to add extra storeys to their homes or conservatories, loft conversions, front driveways and wind turbines.

Dr Clark comments:

"This Government has ambitious proposals to make the [planning] system fit to meet the challenges of the 21st century. Above all, we want to change the philosophy behind local planning. We want to move away from a system with significant elements of imposition from above, to one with participation and involvement at its heart – not just warm words, or a commitment in principle, but real opportunities for people to have a say. We also want to move away from a system that seeks to resolve the different needs of different groups at a local level by imposing choices from above, towards one which enables a mature debate at local level."

Eric Pickles MP: Why this Government wants faith groups to play a leading part in the Big Society

By Communities and Local Government Secretary, Eric Pickles

As we approach December, many of us feel inspired to give something back. You don’t need to a regular churchgoer to embrace that Christian value by wrapping presents for disadvantaged kids, put on a panto at the local theatre or sing carols at an old folks' home. That's why few things exasperate me more than when I read of councils letting Christmas be hijacked and renaming it ‘Winterval’ or ‘Luminous’. It's part of an aggressive school of secularism that has marginalised faith groups in this country.

Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Hindu or Sikh are united in their desire to make things better in their communities. That’s why this Government wants religion to play a leading part in the Big Society. This week I was glad to recognise the contribution of faith groups to our society with ‘inter-faith week’. You won’t find too many churches, temples, mosques or synagogues in this country only interested in what goes on in their own walls. Today and every day, without thanks or applause, you’ll get volunteers from every faith group serving their community in every conceivable way: running youth clubs; offering help to the homeless; providing meals to the vulnerable – or simply listening to the lonely. In many ways these communities exemplify the Big Society principles of collective responsibility, neighbourliness and practical skills to get things done.

The experience that faith groups have, the reach into communities that public services may struggle to get to, is invaluable. Religious festivals from Eid to Christmas to Hannukah inspire believers to give to others and think about the less fortunate. Our message in inter-faith week was that if faith groups do a tremendous amount individually; collectively they can do even more.  There’s a brilliant example in Bedford, the ‘Faith in Queen’s Park’ project brings together Sikhs, Christians and Muslims to run sports and activities for around 250 young people and disadvantaged adults every week.

Eric Pickles MP: Town Hall Pravda-style "newspapers" waste money and undermine local democracy

By Communities and Local Government Secretary Eric Pickles MP

‘The only security of all is in a free press…,’ wrote Thomas Jefferson, ‘it is necessary to keep the waters pure’.  But in recent years, the waters in local communities have become increasingly muddied.  More and more councils have begun printing their own newspapers, squeezing the free and independent press out of the market.  This has been a giant step in the wrong direction for local democracy.

Journalists like Jim Naughtie and John Humphrys, Roy Greenslade and Richard Littlejohn, cut their teeth on their local papers.  As we all recognise, local journalism has been under increasing pressure from the relentless news cycle and the internet.  But if local newspapers disappear, where will residents get an independent, thoughtful critique of how their councillors are behaving and how their council is performing? Certainly not from the town hall Pravda where glossy print meets spin.

Councils should let their achievements speak for themselves: not use glossy freesheets to tell people what to think.  Many councils are already embracing a new era of transparency: putting the facts about their spending online without an editorial gloss and letting people make up their own minds.  Others have started to work with, rather than against, their local newspaper: so that straightforward information about local services and community resources reaches local residents without compromising the papers independence.

As well as the democratic principles at stake, I also have deep concerns about the amount of money some councils are spending blowing their own trumpets.  As the BBC reported, Newham council spent upwards of half a million pounds on their newspapers; while Greenwich’s magazine looks like a local edition of Vogue – though the quality of reporting doesn’t seem to live up to the production values, an issue which has caused a great deal of concern.

I’m determined to strike a blow for freedom of the local press who can’t compete with a bottomless pit of taxpayer funds.  That’s why I’ve proposed tightening up the rules governing councils promotion and publicity.  I don’t think, for example, that there will be any great loss to British journalism if councils can’t print their freesheets more than once a quarter.  The consultation closed this week, and there has been significant interest in the issue, with more than two hundred responses.  But it’s important to recognise that some councils don’t need to wait to be told: Hammersmith and Fulham council has decided to stop publishing its newspaper.

At a time when councils are facing up to really difficult choices, these excessive publicity machines seem completely out of kilter with public sentiment.  Councils have got to ask themselves whether residents would prefer to see their council tax spent on frontline services or on self-promotion?  Propaganda dressed up as journalism not only wastes money but undermines a free press and a healthy democracy.  As the Prime Minister promotes those very values abroad in China this week, it’s more important than ever we actively promote them at home.