HC Deb 03 November 1976 vol 918 cc1381-3
Mr. Speaker

Mr. Graham Page.

Mr. Graham Page

Is the Minister aware that in the Conservative-controlled—

Mr. Speaker

Order. Does the right hon. Gentleman intend to wait for the answer before asking his supplementary question?

Mr. Graham Page, to ask Question No. 1.

1. Mr. Graham Page

asked the Secretary of State for the Environment what recent advice he has given to local authorities on staffing.

The Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Peter Shore)

I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on opening Question Time on such an agreeable note.

Following my Department's Circular 84/76 issued in August about local authority expenditure in 1976–78, I met the local authority associations at the consultative council on 20th October. I made it clear to them that, while it was essential to reappraise manpower needs to conform with the provision for local authority expenditure in the financial years 1976–77 and 1977–78, it should be possible to achieve the savings required very largely by natural wastage rather than redundancies.

Mr. Page

Since I was fairly sure what the answer would be, Mr. Speaker, may I now ask the Secretary of State whether he is aware that the Conservative-controlled Sefton Metropolitan Borough Council, in whose area my constituency lies, has managed, since reorganisation, to employ less staff than were employed before reorganisation by the former boroughs which comprise the new borough?

Has not the Secretary of State been rather slow to use the persuasive and many other powers which he has to stop local authorities using reorganisation as an excuse for swollen local bureaucracy and to ask them to emulate the very good example of my own borough?

Mr. Shore

I can well understand the right hon. Gentleman's sensitivity about charges that reorganisation might have led to growth in the number of local authority employees. After all, he played a very prominent part in setting up the present structure of local government. I do not think that anyone other than the authors of reorganisation would absolve the reorganised local authorities from the charge that, whatever else their virtues may be, there has been a very great increase in staff employed. Sefton is probably an exception to the rule, if what the right hon. Gentleman said is true, as I am sure it is. It is not the general experience.

In approaching local authorities, we have urged upon them the need to look very carefully at their manpower needs and, above all, to conform to the figures for total local government expenditure laid down in the February White Paper.

Mr. Madden

Is not the reluctance of the Opposition to listen to advice on this matter a clear indication that the reorganisation of local government led to an inevitable increase in staff? Will my right hon. Friend give some indication of the growth since reorganisation in the number of those who administer the services as opposed to those who deliver them?

Will my right hon. Friend confirm that standards will not be allowed to deteriorate because of synthetic attacks by the Opposition on staffing levels, and that it is most important to maintain public expenditure—[Interruption]—in order to maintain services which are of importance?

Mr. Speaker

There is no sense in the length of some of the supplementary questions. I appeal to hon. Members who are now shouting to be brief with their own supplementary questions—if they are lucky enough to be called.

Mr. Shore

It is undoubtedly true that there has been a considerable growth—of the order of 4 per cent. per annum—in local government manpower since reorganisation. In the last year, however, it has been slowed down. Indeed, the last figures we have for local government employment show that the growth was under 1 per cent. in the year up to June 1976. I would expect that there will be a standstill situation by the end of this year.

It is, of course, important to maintain standards—I think we are all deeply aware of that—but I believe that much can be done by a better deployment of existing resources than has at present been achieved.

Mr. Raison

The Secretary of State accepts, I think, that Government policy will entail some redundancies in local government next year. Is he able to give us any idea how many redundancies there are likely to be as a result of Government action? Will he also give us an assurance that where local authorities are forced to implement redundancies they will have his backing?

Mr. Shore

It would, of course, be wrong for me to say that no redundancies will arise. I do not think that any Secretary of State could have given such an assurance at any time in relation to local authorities. I do say, however, that redundancies should be exceptional and local, as the savings required overall—that is, nationally—should be capable of being contained within the margins of natural wastage of staff.