(Eric Pickles - Blue sky thinking when it comes to spending cuts…)
Eric Pickles, Thursday’s media hero after moving towards government transparency by publishing his Communities and Local Government department’s accounts, took his rallying cry for “a nation of armchair auditors” a tad too far by abolishing the nation’s actual auditors. In an unexpected move, Pickles got his oversized knickers in a right royal twist when he announced the abolition of the one reputable quango, the Audit Commission.
The surprising element of Pickles’ announcement is not the decision to cut a quango (the Coalition has been cutting left, right and, well, centre-right, as Clint Eastwood will tell you), but the choice of this quango. The Audit Commission’s very mission statement is to independently ensure value for money for the taxpayer in local government spending, which is entirely inkeeping with the Coalition mantra of “more for less”. Now local government’s will have to fork out for private auditing firms, while Lansley’s NHS shake-up will have to incorporate a whole “new audit framework”.
Admittedly, old Eric and the Audit Commission have been at loggerheads before, after he accused the independent body of plotting against the Tories after £60,000 advice from a lobbying firm suggested they “combat the activities of Eric Pickles”. Similarly, in May he vetoed the £240,000 salary for the new head of the Commission.
Abolish an independent body on account of personal gripes and longstanding rivalry? I’m sure Pickles wouldn’t dream of it.
