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Council’s bid to banish red tape
Date published: 08 July 2010
Regulation that makes life difficult for Oldham Council workers could be scrapped if they set out to Government why it is a problem.
Communities secretary Eric Pickles wants council workers and sector experts to suggest statutory guidance, secondary legislation or regulations they think should be removed so councils can get on with their job.
Mr Pickles said: “Too much power has been sucked out of communities into Westminster eroding trust in politics and sapping responsibility and initiative with stifling bureaucracy. More often than not over legislating simply leads to bureaucrats ticking extra sets of boxes. We need a sensible new approach that makes clear laws are intended to protect people, not overwhelm them with red tape.”
Ministers say they are already earmarking pages of “unnecessary regulations, ridiculous micromanagement or outdated laws” that need re-examining. Included is the 1919 law that requires the Secretary of State to approve councils wanting to buy new land for allotments, three different sets of regulation governing tree protection and guidance on the duty to carry out an economic assessment.
Oldham Council leader Howard Sykes said: “I welcome any initiative that will help the council to cut waste and to improve front-line services.
“Oldham Council is always looking at what can be done to improve efficiency and value for money. Removing unnecessary legislation can help this process.”
Any ideas can be sent to cutredtape@communities.gsi.gov.uk .
Comments
WELL it must be welcomed, but anyone thinking that the tree huggers in the ivory tower will reduce the tax burden on the poor workers... dream on
The LibDems have uneccessarily increased the number of Directors so it is impossible to reduce the amount of red tape.
No Alice they reduced them quite a bit.. Labour would have had a director of the stationary draws if they had their way..still Lib Dems need to reduce more I kinda agree with you
What are stationary draws? I think you mean stationery drawers. Spelling used to be taught, perhaps it is no longer considered essential when we now have compootas (sic).
Most sorry I apologise to Get it Right for my misuse of my computer and yes it is drawers. Many thanks
Have Your Say
Finally an initiative worth taking up free up red tape would make work quicker, easy and the workers themselves wont have their backs up all the time. Next job is the police!
By Rataxsis @ 08/07/2010 12:25:32