Lord Watts
Main Page: Lord Watts (Labour - Life peer)
Mr Dave Watts (St Helens North) (Lab)
1. What recent assessment he has made of the likely change in the provision of services by local authorities as a result of reductions in the level of Government funding to such authorities.
The Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Mr Eric Pickles)
We have given councils much greater flexibility and the financial autonomy to manage their budgets. If they share back-office services, join forces to get better value for money, cut excessive chief executive pay, and root out waste and fraud, they can protect key front-line services.
Mr Watts
I thank the Secretary of State for his response, but does it not demonstrate that he is miles away from the reality of what is happening in the streets? My local authority, which is one of the most efficient and a four-star authority that has frozen its council tax for four years, is faced with 500 job losses, massive cuts in most of its services and a £28 million loss in spending in its local economy. What is he going to do about that?
Mr Pickles
I recognise that the hon. Gentleman has many duties in this House, but perhaps he should have spoken to his council leader, Councillor Marie Rimmer, who says:
“most job losses”
will be
“achieved by not filling posts, early retirement and voluntary redundancies”,
which is hardly the position that he paints. It is also telling that Sally Yeoman, the chief executive of Halton and St Helens Voluntary and Community Action, blames the drop in funding on the ending of the working neighbourhoods fund—a fund that the Labour party had decided to end in March.