NEWS
Ministers and councils remain at loggerheads over central govern- ment insistence that weekly bin collections be reinstated.
The battle has become a sym- bol of local authorities’ unhap- piness with government rhetoric on localism that fails to hold up in practice whenever councils do something ministers do not like.
A new survey conducted by the Press Association showed that 69 out of 117 councils had fortnightly collections in all or the majority of the areas they covered, but that none was planning to change or change back to weekly collec- tions.
More councils explore ‘enabler’ option to hand over all services
Another council is considering abandoning its role as a provider of services, and becoming a ‘com- missioning’ organisation instead.
Bury Council would hand over and contract out services to pri- vate companies, voluntary groups, charities and other councils, while others would simply disappear, as part of its ‘Transforming Bury’ strat- egy passed by councillors at the end of March.
The opposition Labour group, which voted against the plans, called it “wholesale privatisation” while public service union Unison said it will lead to lower standards and higher charges for residents.
But Leader of the Council, Conservative Bob Bibby, said he saw “no reason” not to go forward with a policy that could lead to bet- ter services and at a lower cost, and said the long-term vision for councils since Margaret Thatcher’s premiership had been for them to be come ‘enablers’ rather than pro- viders.
The council must save £32.4m by 2014-5.
The ‘enabling’ model is also be- ing investigated by other local au- thorities, including Suffolk County Council.
6 | public sector executive Mar/Apr 11
Cabinet office minister Francis Maude has rejected Parliamentary criticism of his quango reforms, saying that departments are es- timating reductions in spending through public bodies of £11bn a year by 2014-15.
The reductions are part of a cu- mulative £30bn reduction over the spending review period through the review of public bod- ies, departmental reforms and the Comprehensive Spending Review, he said.
Francis Maude
Under the reforms, approximately 200 organisations will cease to be public bodies and their functions will either be brought back into government, devolved to local government, moved out of gov- ernment or abolished altogether.
Responding to the January report on public bodies by the Public Administration Select Committee, Maude announced in March: “Reform of public bodies is long overdue and our plans will bring about the largest scale changes to the quango landscape in a generation.
“There should be a clear pre- sumption that an elected, ac- countable individual takes re- sponsibility for these activities unless there is a compelling
Clyde Loakes, of the Local Government Association, said: “Bin collection is a local matter to be decided by councils with their residents.
“There is no need to introduce a
rigid, nationally imposed system of bin collection which won’t take into account local differences.”
But local government minister Bob Neill said: “Families pay £120 a month in council tax – they de-
serve a decent bin collection service. We will deliver further reforms to help councils increase the frequency of recycling and rubbish collections, and to stop civil liberties being undermined by unreasonable bin fines and Big Brother tactics.”
Councils say the fortnightly col- lections save them millions of pounds and boost recycling rates, although polls show the majority of people want weekly collections.
The Government has already an- nounced that powers for councils to impose fines for infringing bin rules are to be dropped.
reason for it being carried out by an independent body. So we are converting a number of public bodies into executive agencies precisely to make them demo- cratically accountable through a minister. The Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission is one example.
“A secondary but important part of the reforms is to cut waste. Public bodies will help us to achieve £2.6bn of cumulative administra- tive savings across government and divert public funds to essen- tial frontline services.
“The reforms also encourage the Big Society by transferring functions from public bodies to voluntary, charitable and social enterprises.”
Maude also announced restric- tions on public-funded bodies’ lobbying, PR and marketing ac- tivities.
The Public Bodies Bill, which will provide the legislative basis for reform, has been introduced into the House of Lords, before progressing to the Commons in due course.
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