Date: Thu 26 February 2009
Accounts Commission misses the point on local government
UNISON – the union representing staff delivering local
services - has slammed today’s Accounts Commission annual
overview report on local government, as piecemeal and inaccurate.
Matt Smith, UNISON’s Scottish Secretary, said:
“Unfortunately the Accounts Commission’s report
skips over the significant cost implications of local councils
complying with the law and delivering equal pay which could
run into millions of pounds; mistakenly advocates the use of
shared service to achieve ‘urgent savings’ when
all the evidence shows that shared services based on cost savings
don’t work*; advocates an increased concentration on the
failed mantra of ‘competitive’ services; and recommends
increasing the bureaucracy to collect more accounts information
rather than addressing the increased need for public services
in a recession.”
The union also points to the irony that an earlier report by
the Accounts Commission slated the public services for unplanned
and unmonitored overuse of consultants, whereas this one advocates
concentration on shared services – where consultants are
increasingly used as a prop to make the case.
Matt Smith said:
“We have tried to get information from both central government
and the local government Improvement Service on the use of consultants.
Both have refused our Freedom of Information requests –
central government because they didn’t keep a record of
the work companies do, and the Improvement Service because they
were not covered by the FOI(S) Act. We do know that consultants
are strongly involved in promoting shared services, including
some prominent failures, and wonder that this contradiction
hasn’t occurred to the Accounts Commission.”
“It is a pity that at a time when local councils face
significant challenges from the current economic crisis and
underfunding from central government, they are not being better
served by the body set up to overview their performance. The
Accounts Commission can surely do better than advocating local
government being sidetracked into expensive reorganisation of
services, risking increased waste of money on failed shared
service development, and ignoring a huge cost implication for
local government.”
ENDS
Note for editors:
*As an example of the problems with Shared Services, the shared
IT services project between the Department for Transport and
its seven agencies was supposed to be up and running last year
and save £57m. By this year only two agencies and the
DfT were using it and the costs have risen by £81m.
