The Government announced that the Standards Board is being abolished. But rather than go gracefully it is engaging in some last minute ambulance chasing. The Chairman of Standards for England, Dr Robert Chilton, has written to councils. He notes that the Decentralisation and Localism Bill will "abolish the Standards Board regime." He responds: "Beyond this […]
Yesterday I looked to the benefit of the CPS paper in terms of saving money. Another benefit of of the radical proposals for reduced duplication through localism would be in diminishing the burden of bureaucracy on the hapless British subject attempting to Kafkasque public sector layers. If the articulate middle class find it frustrating how […]
Last week saw the launch of the latest book from John Seddon’s stable, Systems Thinking in the Public Sector: Case studies delivering public services that work. It is a volume of case studies showing how local authorities using his ideas have made massive improvements in service in conjunction with dramatic reductions in costs. At the launch […]
Extraordinary story in the Sunday Times about the Audit Commission, the taxpayer funded local government regulator, spending £60,000 to lobby against the Conservatives. This is because of proposals from the Party to scale back the Commission's budget and endless regulations – which at present represent a heavy financial burden for town halls to comply with. In particular the […]
Mark Wallace of the Taxpayers Alliance judges the new CAA ratings and its Oneplace website to have failed in holding Town Halls to account. Great play has been made this week of the launch of the OnePlace website and the new Comprehensive Area Assessment. The CAA replaces the old star rating system for councils, and is […]
Billions have gone into all these inspections, assessments and rankings of local services. Now the fruits are on offer via a website called Oneplace which has cost a further £220,000. The combined efforts of the Audit Commission, Care Quality Commission, HM Inspectorates of Constabulary, Prisons and Probation and Ofsted offer "an independent overview of the quality […]
Cllr Mark Bowen, the Deputy Leader of Conservative run Hounslow Council, on how they have made the complaints procedure in Hounslow quicker, cheaper and more effective. Save money and improve Complaints Management at the same time? This is what has been achieved in Hounslow. In addition to being Deputy Leader of the London Borough of […]
I've written a piece for The Guardian's Comment is Free website, about Tory proposals to tackle poverty, which Tim has been kind enough to Twitter in praise of. Not all the comments have been supportive but I was interested in the following response. RebeccaJT13 Aug 09, 11:45am (about 4 hours ago)Hi I work for a youth charity which […]
As reported earlier this week Cambridgeshire is among the Councils to have been given an award for reducing bureaucracy. Here the Council leader Cllr Jill Tuck says they enforce rules on business in the least onerous way possible. Cutting red tape is at the heart of what Conservative-led local government should be all about. It […]
For a Labour Government Quango to be passing judgment on others having too much bureaucracy does remind me a bit of the United Nations deciding the Cuba would be a suitable country to sit pontificating on its Human Rights Council. Nevertheless I am pleased to see that three Conservative Councils – Bexley, Westminster and Cambridgeshire […]
Labour Ministers were attacked today for their plans to give councils new powers to spy on their residents, as Conservatives pledged to end the abuse and misuse of town hall spying powers. In a new policy document, plans are outlined to ban surveillance for all but the most serious criminal offences, to require all surveillance […]
Some of my best friends are, or have been, employed as "political advisers" to Conservative Councils. I hope they will not take offence by my suggestion that such posts should be abolished and their talents released for more productive uses. When we swept to power in Hammersmith and Fulham among the earliest decisions made was […]
Cllr Daniel Moylan, the Deputy Leader of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea on how Councils are giving £3 million to a body called LACORS which pushes for enforced Metrication and further regulation. The Local Authorities Coordinators of Regulatory Services (nice touch, that: "regulatory services") is nominally responsible to a board of elected Councillors […]