Town halls will be told to cut back on diversity training and expensive office away days if they want to put up council tax, Esther McVey the ‘Common Sense Minister’ has said. The Telegraph has more.
Esther McVey said councils should reduce spending on controversial “equality, diversity and inclusion” initiatives in return for asking taxpayers for more money.
It comes as the vast majority of councils are expected to put up their bills by the maximum 5% allowed in April.
Some councils which have declared themselves effectively bankrupt, such as Birmingham, are set to increase their bills by up to 10%.
Ms McVey, whose official title is Cabinet Office Minister, told GB News: “The taxpayers are saying, and I absolutely agree with them, we don’t want to be paying for these ballooning away days and these spurious courses.
“What we want to do is to make sure you are doing the job at hand. We want to have value for money and we want to make sure there isn’t any waste.”
A study two years ago found that across 397 councils there are 794 equality, diversity and inclusion members of staff.
Conservative Way Forward found that the average cost per council was £67,000 – totalling £30 million a year across the country.
The Minister said: “I’m looking at what [councils] are doing, what their Equality, Diversity and Inclusion spend is, and how many people they’ve got as Equality, Diversity and Inclusion champions.
“If they’re asking the Government for more money, if they’re looking to put council tax up, I’m now working with Michael Gove to say there must be conditions applied to that money that is going to them and one of them is they’ve got to cut back on waste, EDI spend and days away from the office…
“You can’t put up taxpayers’ bills, you can’t be asking the Government for more money and yet not getting rid of wasteful spending yourself. I think that is essential.
“We are handing over extra support, as is the public. Therefore, in return, what we’d expect is any form of waste… needs to go.
“Because at the end of the day, you should be serving. I call that common sense, and I’m quite happy to wear the mantle of common sense.”
Okay, now what about the civil service? It’s commendable that the Government wants to tell local councils to stop the wasteful wokery. But there’s still far too much going on on its own doorstep, under its own nose. Will it do more to put an end to that as well?
Worth reading in full.
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