13 April 2011
Local Government Secretary Eric Pickles has clarified the information Whitehall needs from councils in a list published today.
The data requirements have been compiled under 142 headings but the list is not comprehensive. For example, it does not include figures the government deems necessary for local accountability, such as publication of all spending items over £500, or information required for bids for specific grants.
Pickles said he had abolished 37 data collection demands, including Comprehensive Area Assessments and the Place Survey.
He said: ‘For too long council staff have worked to the whims of Whitehall, waiting for the next data demand to increase their workload. If it’s not on [this] list, we won’t be asking for it.
‘With council spending power coming down this year it is right that we reduce the time they spend working to Whitehall.’
He has also published a consultation on his department’s planned release of statistics for 2011/12, which propose dropping 17 publications and modifying another nine.
Local Government Association chair Baroness Margaret Eaton said: 'We want this announcement of the Single Data List to be a line in the sand. Councils are required to report more than 43,000 different pieces of information into the black hole of Whitehall bureaucracy and despite pledges to cut red tape we’ve yet to see any genuine reduction in that data burden.
'LGA research shows that the average single tier authority is required to fill in an estimated 12.6 million boxes a year to meet the bureaucratic demands of central government. It is estimated that it costs councils on average £1.8m a year to fulfil this demand. This time consuming and costly burden must be slashed. '
