16 August 2010
The Audit Commission is waiting for ministers to set out the timetable for its abolition.
Speaking to Public Finance this afternoon, commission chair Michael O’Higgins said that there had been no contact from the government over transitional arrangements.
He added that the first indications from Local Government Secretary Eric Pickles about the disbanding of the body came on the morning of August 13, the day before the announcement was due to take place. ‘Since the election, we exchanged letters with the work and pensions secretary, the health secretary and had invitations for follow up meetings with a few of them, and there was nothing untoward,’ he said.
In a letter to Pickles today, O’Higgins said the commission was ‘disappointed and dismayed at the misleading press reports’ surrounding the announcement. The secretary of state said the abolition was part of a move to increase transparency over expenditure, following his decision on August 12 to publish all spending over £500 by the Department for Communities and Local Government.
But O’Higgins said that the commission wrote to Pickles on June 9 offering to publish its own spending over £500, yet was asked to delay publication to fit in with the DCLG’s timetable.
He added that the government’s criticism of the commission’s all-staff email informing employees of the decision was unfair.
‘I’ve no idea how anybody knew how we relayed it to staff,’ he told PF. ‘The Audit Commission has over 2,000 staff nationwide, many working at client sites, so there was no opportunity to “call everyone together” as has been claimed.’ The email was sent only after every other method to inform staff face-to-face had been explored, he added.
Further allegations concerning ‘days at the Newmaket races’, hiring a public relations firm to ‘lobby’ against shadow ministers and forcing councils to adopt fortnightly bin collections were all inaccurate, the letter said.
On the fate of existing auditing staff, O’Higgins said: ‘We are hoping that we won’t get to the point of redundancies, whether by audit staff moving to the private sector or creating an employee owned company.
‘Other than the secretary of state’s proposal for a mutual, we have had no communication with ministers about the idea. But I had several discussions over the weekend with people interested in supporting such an idea.’
He said that he expects local authorities to work together to continue the value-for-money audits that the commission undertook. ‘I believe the savings we have helped bodies make have been worthwhile and I would therefore be surprised if similar measures are not put in place. It would be a stretching challenge for a sector-led initiative but I have no doubt the sector is up to it,’ he added.
Earlier in the day, Clive Betts, chair of the local government select committee, told PF that the end of the commission’s value-for-money research will harm councils in the long term.
