Surrey County Conservatives

Surrey Conservatives welcome the end of the Audit Commission (16th July)

Tim Hall hails a move that will save council taxpayers' money and decentralise power

Tim Hall, Cabinet Member for Change & Efficiency on Surrey County Council, welcomed the news that the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, Eric Pickles, will be scrapping the unpopular and expensive Audit Commission.

“I am incredibly pleased by this announcement.

I think that under the Labour Government the Audit Commission tended to subject local authorities to examinations of how they were implementing Labour policies rather than simply carrying out the traditional auditing function that those of us who have worked in private industry are used to. This was incredibly expensive and undemocratic since large parts of the UK, and Surrey in particular demonstrated on a consistent basis that they didn’t want Labour policies.

I am glad that Eric Pickles, less than 3 months into his new role, has moved to abolish this unpopular and unaccountable quango. As a former local council Leader it is good to see that he has not forgotten his roots.

Of course we have to wait to see the exact details of what will be replacing it, but on the face it seems sensible to transfer some oversight powers to the National Audit Office and the Local Government Ombudsman, whilst allowing local authorities to appoint their own independent external auditors. We can, however, from our own experience, say that this will almost certainly represent much better for money for the Surrey taxpayer.

This is just the sort of freedom that Conservatives in local government have asked for and Eric Pickles has, yet again, listened and proved himself to be a friend of local government and a true localist.

This new Conservative-led Coalition Government has done far more good for local government and for residents and businesses in Surrey in 3 months than Labour managed in 13 years”.