The Treasury used to soften public opinion leading up to a Budget by leaking, the previous weekend, dire predictions of tax increases and spending cuts which proved to be groundless, thus leaving the public relieved things were not worse.
In the case of the local government settlement, there has been no attempt to soften opinion. In the weeks before the Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR), there were dire predictions that local government was going to get clobbered. Sure enough, in the CSR, local government was clobbered. In the run-up to the settlement, there were more predictions that local government would get a hammering in the settlement. This week it did. You could certainly not accuse ministers of spinning. They have never bothered to disguise the fact that local government is the Aunt Sally of public spending cuts, nor deviated from their insistence from day one in power that town and county halls will bear the brunt to spare education, health and international development.
The public themselves are certainly aware that their councils are being squeezed from above. In some cases, they may even have noticed certain services are being curtailed. But, generally, the impact has yet to be truly felt. Even the national media are starting to get bored with stories about branch libraries under threat and potholes unfilled, partly because they ran the same stories the day after the CSR, when local government got its hammering then and partly because they are yet to occur in any quantity. What the media require is human interest – a tragedy, a catastrophe, blame to be apportioned, either to hapless council officials or heartless ministers who have slashed budgets.
But that is in the future and hopefully, never. For the next few weeks, councils will attempt to absorb their revenue downturns with the minimal impact on frontline services. If they can manage, it will be a super-human achievement. If not, then the library cuts and unfilled potholes will be superseded by far bigger stories of strategic service reductions – and ministers will be asking themselves whether, after all, it was a good idea to deal local government such a bad hand.
On that cheery note – a happy Christmas to you all!
Wednesday 15 December 2010
Wednesday 8 December 2010
Bill for the long term
In the revolving door that was the secretary of state’s office responsible for local government under Labour (Prescott, Byers, Prescott again, Miliband, Kelly, Blears, Denham) each new incumbent tended to regard having their own white paper as a badge of office.
The coalition in contrast appears to have decided that one local government Bill is quite enough for one Parliament. Considering that it is both unravelling 13 years of Labour policy (and in the case of scrapping the Audit Commission previous Tory policy as well) along with setting out its own stall for local government until 2015 it is hardly surprising the Localism Bill is due to run to 200 clauses. Indeed the diminutive local government minister Bob Neill joked last week at a conference that although he had a copy of the Bill on his desk he could still see over the top of it.
Actually, most of the Localism Bill’s contents have been fairly straightforward to put together and much has already been well trailed. The stumbling block which has delayed its publication to the point at which civil servants fear they might be sharing the Christmas Day turkey with Eric Pickles has been over creating directly elected mayors in the 12 English cities outside London. Big city councils do not like them. They did not like them when they were Tony Blair’s Big Idea a decade ago either. And you can be sure Eric and his team have not been shoe-horning mayors into the Bill only to see the only take-up come from shire districts.
But despite its breadth, will the Bill live up to its name? Despite their insistence on a localist agenda coalition ministers have been tempted so far to intervene on anything from council newspapers and chief executive salaries to council tax levels and fortnightly bin collections. Is Big Society an opportunity or a threat to councils? And the absence of any serious push towards Total Place or community budgeting outside the 16 pilots is disappointing considering how many savings have been identified from previous studies.
However the biggest challenge by far is implementing these changes in the midst of unprecedented cuts in public spending. That will be the real test both for the Bill and for localism.
The coalition in contrast appears to have decided that one local government Bill is quite enough for one Parliament. Considering that it is both unravelling 13 years of Labour policy (and in the case of scrapping the Audit Commission previous Tory policy as well) along with setting out its own stall for local government until 2015 it is hardly surprising the Localism Bill is due to run to 200 clauses. Indeed the diminutive local government minister Bob Neill joked last week at a conference that although he had a copy of the Bill on his desk he could still see over the top of it.
Actually, most of the Localism Bill’s contents have been fairly straightforward to put together and much has already been well trailed. The stumbling block which has delayed its publication to the point at which civil servants fear they might be sharing the Christmas Day turkey with Eric Pickles has been over creating directly elected mayors in the 12 English cities outside London. Big city councils do not like them. They did not like them when they were Tony Blair’s Big Idea a decade ago either. And you can be sure Eric and his team have not been shoe-horning mayors into the Bill only to see the only take-up come from shire districts.
But despite its breadth, will the Bill live up to its name? Despite their insistence on a localist agenda coalition ministers have been tempted so far to intervene on anything from council newspapers and chief executive salaries to council tax levels and fortnightly bin collections. Is Big Society an opportunity or a threat to councils? And the absence of any serious push towards Total Place or community budgeting outside the 16 pilots is disappointing considering how many savings have been identified from previous studies.
However the biggest challenge by far is implementing these changes in the midst of unprecedented cuts in public spending. That will be the real test both for the Bill and for localism.
Wednesday 1 December 2010
A little too much of a hurry..?
As the row over the front-loading of grant cuts rumbles on to the 11th hour of the postponed financial settlement – any bets on publication, Christmas Eve at 11pm? – is this the time to feel a tad sorry for Eric Pickles?
The self-confessed ‘fat man in a hurry’ may have been perhaps a little too hasty when presenting himself before the Star Chamber, back in the autumn. When dealing with the Treasury, it is always wise to a) read the small print on any deal before signing, and b) check your pockets before leaving. These people are past masters at relieving Cabinet ministers of large amounts of cash without them even noticing.
The fact is, Eric has done a sterling job for his coalition and deserves a warming brandy at Chequers from the boss on Christmas Day for the way he volunteered local government for the lion’s share of the cuts in the Spending Review. His Cabinet colleagues, particularly health, the Department for International Development and education, will doubtless have slapped him on the back, relieved that his sacrifice has spared their own.
And to be fair to Eric, he will have returned from his Star Chamber encounter feeling that, while the local government settlement was tough, it was no more than expected by the sector itself – and, indeed, there was the benefit of an extra £1bn for councils to tackle adult care on top.
The problem is the front-loading element of the cuts which Eric and his colleagues now realise is rapidly becoming a large elephant trap, opening out before them. Unfortunately, unlike shoppers buying their Christmas gifts, there is no cooling-off period with the Treasury. The deal has been made and Eric is stuck with it.
He may thrash about, asking councils to look down the backs of their sofas for cash reserves, but as things stand, the front-loading is set to be a massive headache. And just when the bad press starts about library closures, old folk in unheated homes, streetlights turned off and roads pockmarked with holes, Eric will find his Cabinet colleagues are suddenly nowhere to be seen. It’s a brutal world, politics.
The self-confessed ‘fat man in a hurry’ may have been perhaps a little too hasty when presenting himself before the Star Chamber, back in the autumn. When dealing with the Treasury, it is always wise to a) read the small print on any deal before signing, and b) check your pockets before leaving. These people are past masters at relieving Cabinet ministers of large amounts of cash without them even noticing.
The fact is, Eric has done a sterling job for his coalition and deserves a warming brandy at Chequers from the boss on Christmas Day for the way he volunteered local government for the lion’s share of the cuts in the Spending Review. His Cabinet colleagues, particularly health, the Department for International Development and education, will doubtless have slapped him on the back, relieved that his sacrifice has spared their own.
And to be fair to Eric, he will have returned from his Star Chamber encounter feeling that, while the local government settlement was tough, it was no more than expected by the sector itself – and, indeed, there was the benefit of an extra £1bn for councils to tackle adult care on top.
The problem is the front-loading element of the cuts which Eric and his colleagues now realise is rapidly becoming a large elephant trap, opening out before them. Unfortunately, unlike shoppers buying their Christmas gifts, there is no cooling-off period with the Treasury. The deal has been made and Eric is stuck with it.
He may thrash about, asking councils to look down the backs of their sofas for cash reserves, but as things stand, the front-loading is set to be a massive headache. And just when the bad press starts about library closures, old folk in unheated homes, streetlights turned off and roads pockmarked with holes, Eric will find his Cabinet colleagues are suddenly nowhere to be seen. It’s a brutal world, politics.
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