Cross-government Cost-cutting

Lord Greenhalgh Excerpts

Wednesday 21st December 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

My Lords, it is incredibly difficult to follow the noble Lord, Lord Bird. I started off wondering where that was going to lead. I wish him merry Christmas. I bought my Big Issue outside Waitrose in Fulham, as he knows—it is a cracking issue written by people who obviously did not go to the Big Issue party, because it is quite well written.

I first declare my interests, as set out in the register. Like the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy of Southwark, I am proud to say that I am now a life vice-president of the Local Government Association—it took me 20 years of hard slog to get there, but I am delighted to be able to declare that particular interest. I will draw on my local government experience, rather than my ministerial experience, to make a couple of points. The whole idea of cross-cutting cost cutting is a bit like “She sells seashells on the seashore”. Those of us who understand local government know that, when you talk about cross-cutting cost cutting, it is normally because you have no idea how you will save any money, and it is a sort of balancing item in the budget—that is my experience, from six years as a council leader. It is when your Section 151 officer, the finance director, has no clue about how to balance the budget, so it is called cross-cutting cost cutting, which is a sort of “We don’t know” label.

But there are ways of taking money out. It is not a bad thing to reduce costs, whether you are a Labour, Liberal Democrat or Conservative council. I always felt that it was noble to ensure that we spent every penny of every pound from the taxpayer wisely to deliver public services—and you could reduce costs. I had my ABC: A was for “asset management”, or the release of underutilised assets; B was for “budgetary control”, or controlling budgets, as I am sure the Big Issue does; and C was for “cost reduction”, which you could achieve by raising or saving money. This is a noble thing to do; it is not austerity but common sense. That is the ABC of local government. When I was in City Hall, rather than a town hall, it became the three Rs: release underutilised assets, reduce overheads and reform, for example by changing your business model—you could have more constables rather than middle managers and chiefs. That is a way can save money, and it is a noble endeavour.

When I came to Whitehall, it was incredibly difficult to apply those principles because there is something called the Civil Service. You did not deal with council officers or paid service; you suddenly dealt with people who felt that Ministers were here today, if I may say so, and gone tomorrow—certainly in my case. The idea of them following your lead on applying some of those principles was extremely difficult and frustrating. It is particularly frustrating because a lot of us come with real skills in squeezing every penny from every pound. I am a business guy—I have a business as well as a public service track record, and I can apply those principles to saving money—and it pains me to see things such as the NHS track and trace call centres being only 2% utilised. On the NHS—this is not a political point, although I know Labour or the Lib Dems may seize on it—we need inventory management systems to know what people actually need; it should not be “He who shouts the loudest gets the most PPE”. This is basic supply chain management and basic procurement skills. It is not down to politics; it happens under any Government, partly because you cannot get your hands around it in the way that you do in local government, and that is a great shame.

Going back to the way that the noble Lord, Lord Bird, started his speech, and in my final 30 seconds, I therefore do accuse Stoke council of a miscarriage of common sense. For goodness’ sake, if it is a few thousand pounds, do something about it: intervene and use your common sense. You can use common sense, whether in local, regional or national government. I commend the noble Lord, Lord Bird, for raising this, and I am right behind him. Let us get Stoke council to behave itself.