Events | 2010.08.23
Audit Commission chief hits back at government claims of excessive spending
Michael O\'Higgins, chairman of axed quango, defends decision to spend thousands on pot plants, bagels, and event at racecourse
The Audit Commission today rejected as "incorrect" some of the claims about its alleged excessive spending that have been used by the government to justify the abolition of the quango.
Michael O\'Higgins, the commission\'s chairman, said there was a good explanation for its decision to spend £8,000 on an event at Newmarket racecourse, £40,000 on pot plants and £4,000 on bagels.
But Bob Neill, the local government minister, said that his boss Eric Pickles was "entirely justified" in citing the commission\'s "shocking excess" as a reason for his surprise decision to announce its abolition earlier this month.
The Audit Commission, which costs £200m a year to run, is responsible for scrutinising local government spending. Pickles, the communities and local government secretary, wants private auditors – including some auditors working for the commission, perhaps operating as a mutual – to take over this work instead.
In an interview on BBC Radio 4\'s Today programme this morning, O\'Higgins said that "a number of incorrect statements" that appeared to justify Pickles\'s decision appeared in the press after the communities secretary announced the axing of the commission.
Asked about the claim that the commission had spent money on a trip to Newmarket racecourse, O\'Higgins said that the commission had hired conference facilities at the venue on three different occasions to run training courses for local government and health authority staff.
The commission needed to find a venue because it did not have enough room in its own offices and Newmarket offered "the best deal", he said.
He admitted that the commission had spent £40,000 on pot plants. But he said that this only amounted to around £20 a week for each of the commission\'s 37 offices and that organisations like the BBC also spent money on pot plants.
"Most businesses, and most people who want to be good employers of staff, provide an environment where there is some foliage, some growing things. It\'s not a large amount of money," he said.
O\'Higgins admitted that spending more than £4,000 a year on bagels "does sound a lot". But he said they were bought for people who were visiting the commission to attend all-day meetings.
The commission chairman went on: "It\'s very easy to pick individual items out and hold them up to ridicule, but actually there is a sensible explanation for the expenditure that we incurred."
But, in a separate interview with the Today programme, Neill refused to accept that Pickles\'s criticisms were unfair.
"When you look at the overall cost of the commission, I think Eric Pickles\'s comments are entirely justified," Neill said.
"This was a body which was behaving as a large corporate. But it\'s in the public sector. In the current circumstances, that\'s really not acceptable."
Neill said that the auditing of council accounts would continue.
But competition would drive down costs, he claimed, and the abolition of the Audit Commission would mean that councils would no longer have to pay the 5% surcharge they currently paid on audit fees to fund the "corporate" activities of the commission.
Neill also said that the Department for Communities and Local Government did not spend money on pot plants. And he revealed that it had just cancelled its contract for newspapers for ministers\' offices because it had decided that this spending was unnecessary.
For more information, please visit
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/[...]back-claims-excessive-spending
