Local Government Funding

Debate between Tom Blenkinsop and George Hollingbery

Monday 6th December 2010 Commons Chamber

[George Hollingbery]

Indeed. My favourite was on the time taken to re-let a council house, whereby the better we did in re-letting a difficult-to-let council property the worse the statistic became, because of the longer average period for which we had not re-let the house. Every time we re-let a house that had been on the books for three years because it was in a poor condition, the worse our statistic became.

The work also involved a huge amount of management time. We had specialist employees dealing with just that issue and a specialist computer system just to monitor performance management, so I very much welcome rowing back the amount of information that local councils will have to report to central Government. I also became extraordinarily fed up with the number of strategies that we had to deal with, and I would very much welcome an assurance from the Minister that we will not have to do anything like as many of those, either.

I remember fondly the black and minority ethnic strategy for Winchester city council, an entirely necessary document.

[Tom Blenkinsop]

I hear the hon. Gentleman’s comments about reporting by local authorities, so does he have any worries about the £500 rule, whereby anything on which a local authority spends more than £500 will have to be documented?

--- Later in debate ---

[George Hollingbery]

The accounts departments already record most of that information, so I see no great difficulty in councils reporting it more widely. It is already on the books, on computers and there to be reported.

[Tom Blenkinsop]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[George Hollingbery]

If I may, I will carry on.

Strategies were piling up and gathering dust on shelves, but the black and minority ethnic strategy at Winchester city council was, I agree, entirely necessary in small amounts. We, like anybody else, had to be held to account for what we did in that area, but, despite only 1.5% of our population having that background, we were forced to put £50,000 into employing consultants, who produced an enormous great report telling us that what we did already was okay. That is the sort of imposition by central Government to which I hope the localism and decentralisation Bill will put an end.

The wretched Standards Board for England has also accorded a vast amount of work to local government, especially to its legal employees. The board has been used as nothing more than an excuse for the petty battering of officials and parish councillors throughout the country.

We can do more imaginative work in-house, as was said a moment ago. Winchester city, East Hampshire district and Havant borough councils now have a choice-based letting arrangement. That comment has been noted by Opposition Members, but I am sure that such schemes exist in many parts of the country. The arrangement has saved our councils an enormous amount, and we have achieved a better result for our clients. East Hampshire district and Havant borough councils share a joint management tier, and the same individuals hold all the senior management roles in the two authorities: there is one team for two different councils.

Hampshire county council now sends less waste to landfill than any other council in the country, and—furthermore—it generates power for 50,000 homes by incinerating the remainder. Hampshire built itself a new headquarters entirely without cost to the public purse, managed to halve its carbon footprint and is selling other Winchester office blocks that are redundant to its needs. It recently invested with the NHS in 10 state-of-the-art nursing homes, so it is no longer fined millions of pounds for being held responsible for bed blocking—another innovation whereby the council invested to save money. On top of all that, it has made £48 million in efficiency savings—I emphasise, real efficiency savings that can be counted—over the past two years.

I leave my final words to Simon Eden, chief executive of Winchester city council, who says that

“our approach in all this has been to avoid salami-slicing, and instead…re-design services, taking into account changes…made to performance reporting and inspection, planning and in other areas. We have also used that process to look at the best way of focusing on delivery of key priorities for the district, cutting out that which might be seen as lower priority.”

I commend that approach to all local councils and hope very much that the House rejects the motion.