Pickles wants to halt 'massive payouts' to redundant town hall chiefs

Council chief executives made redundant as a result of shared services should not receive 'massive' pay-offs, Local Government Secretary Eric Pickles has said.

He praised councils as being ‘at the forefront of delivering sustainable savings while protecting the front line’ as part of the government’s deficit reduction plan. This showed their ‘capability’ to adapt, he said – ‘whether it is by collaborating and sharing resources to reduce in-house management and overhead costs, or by using technology to improve your services’.

Pickles highlighted the tri-borough arrangement between Westminster City Council, the London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham and the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea, where sharing of services is set to save £40m annually by 2015/16. ‘If other authorities simply copied this example, councils could potentially save up to £2bn.’

He added that the government is actively examining what could be done to facilitate this, including halting pay-outs to departing senior officers.

‘I want to know what central government can do to remove obstacles to more joined-up working and pooling of staff and resources.

‘For example, I’m already looking into representations I’ve already received from local government colleagues on what we can do to make it easier to remove chief executive posts without having to hand out massive pay-offs.’

Pickles also told delegates that the projection by the Local Government Association, earlier this week, of the funding squeeze on local services as a result of increased spending on adult social care was ‘powerful’.

Speaking as the government prepares to publish a draft Bill on reforms to care funding, he added: ‘I’m sure it strikes a chord with many of us because the decisions we are about to take on social care are probably among the difficult and more important decisions you or I will take in our lives. It’s right that it should absolutely be there in the centre of the next Spending Review.’