2015 Review: Goodbye Mr Pickles

Chris Buss bids farewell to the former local government secretary but worries about his legacy.

The departure from government of the noted author Eric Pickles (now knighted for his services to local government literature) after the General Election is my abiding memory of 2015, but unfortunately his legacy will live on.

By his legacy I am not referring to his earlier works such as the inappropriately named Localism Act, his humorous tome of “50 Ways to Save” (designed no doubt to deal with all our past, present and future financial woes), or even his halfway house reform of Local Government Finance with the partial localisation of business rates.

All of these have their place in the pantheon of his works but there are two smaller, lesser, more recent writings of his which could in certain circumstances prove to be his legacy and will impact upon Treasurers up and down the country.

Hidden gems

“What on earth is he talking about ?” I hear some of you say. “Has the latest pint of Young’s Winter Warmer finally addled his brain, whilst listening to the festive vocals of Noddy Holder ?”.

Well, I am referring to the Local Accountability and Public Audit Act, and the removal of statutory protection for chief officers.  These hidden gems will come back and bite local government in the future long after Eric’s masterpiece poem on the right of every Englishman to have a weekly waste collection, into which he can dump the remains of his vindaloo, have been lost in the wake of the latest EU waste directive.

The two reforms replaced systems of control, introduced by a previous Conservative administration, that were designed to place an element of constraint on local authorities and in particular those who were, in 1980s  “Sun speak”, defined as loony left (not a term I would use).

Clearly our great author was not gifted with foresight when he removed these controls thinking that 1980s politics, of which he played a noted part as leader of Bradford Council, were dead and buried and that these protections were no longer required.  Will he be proved wrong?

Back to the 1980s

Talking to colleagues from different parts of the country it is clear that post General Election changes within British politics , or at least English politics,  raises again the possibility of the 1980s being revisited in the guise of anti-austerity local politics.

This raises the spectre of audit challenge and potentially unbalanced budgets, leaving some section 151 officers between a rock and a hard place, possibly facing a career defining decisions to issue section 114 notices without the statutory protection they used to enjoy, and without the support of the Audit Commission and its audit regime, which in itself was weakened when the threat of surcharge was abolished in the late 1990s.

Even without this extra threat Mr Pickles’ legacy combined with the chancellor’s best efforts

will still leave some local authorities potentially in the same perilous place of an unbalanced budget by the end of the decade, even taking into account the offer of  2% social care precept to some of us.

Of course, it may well be that I am doom mongering, over pessimistic, or just a fantasist, thinking the worst about the final chapter of Eric Pickles’ legacy. I hope for the future independence and sanity of my colleagues that I am proved wrong.

Chris Buss is the director of finance and deputy chief executive at the London Borough of Wandsworth.
*The views expressed are those of the author and do not reflect those of London Borough of Wandsworth.

Photo (above & cropped): DCLG, Flickr.
Homepage image (cropped): Conservative Party, Flickr.