Stephen Mosley
Main Page: Stephen Mosley (Conservative - City of Chester)
Nick Boles
The good news is that there is no need to revisit the issue, because the local authority in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) has produced an innovative policy for its local plan, which has been held up by the courts as sound and will put in place a process to protect pubs that are under threat from speculative development so that further use as a pub can be properly considered.
Stephen Mosley (City of Chester) (Con)
14. What steps he has taken to help councils deliver sensible savings.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Brandon Lewis)
We have published “50 ways to save”, an excellent practical guide to councils on how to make sensible savings. We have also provided £27 million through the transformation challenge award and the efficiency support grant to encourage and incentivise authorities to make efficiencies and improve services. That will increase to £100 million as a result of the spending review.
Stephen Mosley
Tory Cheshire West and Chester council and Labour Wirral metropolitan borough council have announced proposals to merge their back-office functions such as IT, legal services, human resources and finance, saving some £69 million. Do not such schemes show that it is possible to make huge savings in local government without impacting front-line services?
Brandon Lewis
My hon. Friend is right, and I was delighted to visit Cheshire West and Chester recently and see some of the plans. It is a really good example of how big authorities can do things. Just last week, I saw at the excellent Staffordshire Moorlands and High Peak councils, small authorities with £10 million budgets, that shared management is saving some 20%, according to the chief executives, so it can be done at all levels.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Brandon Lewis)
I think the point I was making before the Select Committee was to clarify the fact that this Government will not be doing anything to allow for privatisation of the fire service, despite the claims of the hon. Gentleman’s shadow fire Minister, who is trying to scaremonger.
Stephen Mosley (City of Chester) (Con)
T3. Independent analysis by Ernst and Young of the four community budgets pilots show that savings of between £9 billion and £20 billion are possible over five years if the scheme is rolled out across the country. What plans does my hon. Friend have to do just that?
Brandon Lewis
My hon. Friend is quite right: the community budgets pilots have shown huge potential savings to this country and, as I said earlier, better services for residents. We are now rolling out the new network. Last week we announced the first nine authorities to take part. They are looking at bringing together the public sector not just to save money, important though that is, but to give better services in this country—something that the previous Government continually failed to do.