Town hall cash wasted on 'leadership training': Minister attacks taxpayer spending on Common Purpose courses
- Communities Secretary Eric Pickles to spend less on the organisation
- Minister also launches booklet called '50 Ways To Save'
Town halls should stop spending a fortune on expensive leadership training courses run by groups such as Common Purpose, Eric Pickles has said.
The Local Government Secretary called on councils to spend less on the organisation, described as the Left’s answer to the old boys’ network, which provides leadership advice.
He said it was wrong that town halls spent thousands of pounds sending staff and councillors on such courses at a time when front-line services were under threat.
Communities Secretary Eric Pickles has launched a booklet for councils called '50 Ways To Save Money'
The advice was contained in a booklet, 50 Ways to Save, which includes ideas from Mr Pickles on how to make deeper cuts without affecting public services.
Other ideas include spending less on translating documents, and ending the collection of ‘intrusive’ questionnaires from suppliers and residents about their sexuality and religion.
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Mr Pickles said: ‘Every bit of the public sector needs to do their bit to pay off the budget deficit inherited from the last administration.
‘Councils should focus on cutting waste and making sensible savings to protect frontline services and keep council tax down.’
Last month the Daily Mail revealed that Common Purpose had direct or indirect links to three of the assessors to the Leveson inquiry, including Sir David Bell.
He is one of the trustees of the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, which carried out the botched investigation into child abuse at a Welsh care home which led to the naming online of former Tory treasurer Lord McAlpine.
The 50 Ways to Save document says: ‘End expensive leadership courses. Councils could review spending money on sending staff and councillors to expensive “leadership” training courses, such as Common Purpose.
Such training courses can often run into tens of thousands of pounds.’
Mr Pickles also called on town halls to stop spending thousands of pounds translating papers into other languages, saying it encourages segregation.
He added: ‘Similarly, do not give community grants to organisations which promote segregation or division in society.’
The document also calls on town halls to end ‘lifestyle and equality questionnaires’.
‘Some councils spend time and money on asking suppliers and residents to fill out intrusive questionnaires about their sexuality, religion and other personal details – be it to take out a library book or make a planning application.
‘This is simply not necessary. Similarly, councils do not need to routinely spend time and money on equality impact assessments on everything they do.’
Mr Pickles said senior staff pay should be cut, recruitment should be frozen, first-class travel should be banned, and spending on outside consultants slashed.
- Taxpayer-funded pensions for councillors are to be scrapped, Mr Pickles announced yesterday.
Labour introduced the gold-plated pensions on September 12, 2001 – the day after the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York – in an infamous attempt to ‘bury bad news’.
More than 4,500 councillors have signed up, at a cost to taxpayers of £7million a year.
Now the Coalition is proposing that, from 2014, the entitlement will be axed and councillors will no longer be able to enrol on the scheme.
They say it will stop the trend of councillors seeing their position as a job, rather than something they do for the good of the community.
Matthew Sinclair, of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said: ‘It will also restore faith that councillors are there to represent residents rather than forge a career as a professional politician.’
COUNCILLOR PENSIONS AXED
Councillors are to be banned from having taxpayer-funded pensions.
Ministers are propose stop allowing councillors’ access to the Local Government Pension Scheme, saving £7million-a-year.
More than 4,500 councillors signed up to the gold-plated pension scheme by 2010-11.
Local government minister Brandon Lewis said: ‘Every bit of the public sector need to do its bit to help pay off the unsustainable deficit left by the Labour Party.
‘Conservatives believe that councillors are civic volunteers undertaking public service; they are not, and should not be, state employees of the council dependent on the municipal payroll.’
The policy of give councillors pensions paid for by the taxpayer was introduced by the Labour government.
It was the ‘bad news’ announcement that spin doctor Jo Moore wanted to ‘bury’ on the day of the 9/11 terror attacks in the US.
She emailed: ‘It is now a very good day to get out anything we want to bury. Councillors expenses?’
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