PARTY CONFERENCES 2013
He said the Policy Exchange proposal would prevent a decline in social housing standards by capping both the top and bottom of the market – selling off social housing that was in the top 50% by value in an area, but ensuring the newly built properties were not valued in the bottom 25% either.
The other panellists and many in the audience disputed the merits of that policy, set out in full in a policy paper last summer, ‘Ending Expensive Social Tenancies’.
PSE heard more about health service reform at two events covering different aspects of the changes – ‘Clinical Commissioning Groups: How are they working out?’ hosted by Conservative Health, and ‘Commercialising Innovation In The NHS’, put on by think tank 2020health and the NHS Partners Network.
Full reports from both events can be found online at the website of our sister publication in the health service, NHE: www.
nationalhealthexecutive.com
Francis Maude ‘in conversation’ A new approach
Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude had a busy conference, and although his main speech to the conference hall was the usual tub-thumping attacks on the opposition and simplified success stories, he was in a much more reflective and expansive mood in a one- on-one interview with Lord Finkelstein.
That event – another Policy Exchange fringe session, the recently ennobled Daniel Finkelstein is chairman of its trustees – gave Maude a chance to discuss some of his favourite themes in more detail, from transparency to the Big Society.
Maude staunchly defended the Conservatives’ record from the 1980s, and said that advocating a smaller state does not equal a lack of compassion, as people on the left often insist. Instead, he said, society fills the gap left by the
Philippa Roe, leader of Westminster council, spoke in the conference hall on the need to go further on joining up services and budgets without Whitehall interference. Troubled families and integrated health and social care should be “just the start”, she said.
Her council joined its shared service partners Kensington & Chelsea and Hammersmith & Fulham in launching a new paper at the conference, ‘The Case for a New Approach: Public Service Reform Deals’, urging more powers for local authorities. Groups of councils should be able to bid for ‘deals’ that allow them to ignore some national regulations and give them control over services currently provided by central Government departments.
In his keynote speech, communities secretary
state, but does it better and without crowding out business and economic growth. People fed up with paying too much tax feel they have “contracted out their social obligations to the state…that’s a weak society”, he said.
Maude said he wanted more local elected mayors, though accepted that more would need to be done to convince cities of their benefits – everywhere except Bristol rejected the idea at the last set of referendums.
He spoke about Whitehall reform and decentralisation too, saying it’s not simply a case of “letting go” of power and control – it has to be “actively pushed away”.
He was asked about public procurement – which he joked was his Mastermind specialist subject – and he said it has been designed in such a way that it has “almost deliberately” frozen out small business, something he’s determined to change (more on pages 56-61). He backed calls for ‘local by default’ on public procurement, at least for smaller contracts not subject to EU rules on open competition.
Protests in Manchester
About 50,000 people held a march in rally in Manchester on September 29 protesting against Government policies and the Conservatives’ record on the NHS, jobs and cuts.
It was organised by the TUC, whose general secretary Frances O’Grady said: “Austerity is having a devastating effect on our communities and services, with 21,000 NHS jobs lost over the last three months alone.”
There were two arrests made at the demo, which Greater Manchester Police said was one of the largest it had ever policed.
Eric Pickles avoided all mention of the challenges facing local government, instead focusing on attacking Labour profligacy and the EU. He said his own departments has cut its admin costs by £532m and was saving a further £9m by “bunking in” with the Home Office in an office share announced earlier this year.
‘Land of opportunity’
Prime minister David Cameron closed the conference with a speech labelling Britain a “land of opportunity” for those who want it. The speech was widely seen as workmanlike rather than exciting, and contained little in the way of new policy, with vague promises of tax cuts to come but no detail.
Cameron said: “I look to our future and I’m confident. There are battles to fight but beyond this hall are the millions of hardworking people who renew the great in Great Britain every day in the way they work and the way they give and raise their families.
“These are the people we have alongside us together we’ve made it this far, together we’ll finish the job we’ve started, together we’ll build that land of opportunity.”
More reports from the conference and its fringe sessions can be found on page 30, 40 and 62.
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