Audit commission to be scrapped??!

[NightLark]

Another pblic sector organisation bites the dust. I used to have such an ambition to work for them. I have read a lot of their reports, can't believe they are all to go. All public sector audits to be competed for by private sector providers from now on.

Bloody, bloody ConDems.

I really can't think what to say. As far as I know they did excellent work, presumably another idealogical hatchet victim.

They do do excellent work.

I am very and about their loss.

Bloody hell! Wow.

Well, it'll be easier to hide the impact of public spending cuts now, won't it? And harder for anyone to work out what councils and hospitals and the new GP commissioning organisations are up to...

Yes. Quite. This one has just really shocked me. Swearing isn't really an adequate response is it? (not Edam btw, Bloody Hell quite proportionate and reasonable. More the kind of full on ranting that is on the tip of my tongue...)

Cutting an organisation which monitors public spending...... Handing over their work to the (more expensive) private sector.
How much will it cost in terms of redundancy packages for all those staff?
Why didn't he just sack the senior staff if he was worried about the corporate culture ? Oh but wait, that wouldn't line the pockets of his private sector chums.

wow!

wondering how this is going to work in terms of regulation for the housing sector as schapps announced the tsa was toast - then erm...didn;t and anyway i think it will prolly become part of the HCA.

how can the private sector monitor the public sector and if it was to be a business, wouldn't there be then lots of little audit commissions that the public nd private sector could choose from - erm rather like accountants (is that too simple?)

am a bit thick, so explain to me if you can

ddh amd i have just been discussing it - and things like trying to put a fiscal value on work in the communities is very difficult

a private company couldn't come in and make it work becuase of the nature of communities.

Sorry to hear that withorwithoutyou. ng rid of the AC is just so pointless - the private sector will not do what the AC do, which is a lot more than just auditing LAs. The govt could have opened up the external audit work to competitive tender and saved LAs money and left the AC alone.

isthatporridge I doubt it will be cheaper to use the private sector. The LAs will have to go through a tender process which takes time and effort. Yes the private sector may charge less at first to win business then, hey ho, they'll up the prices. Also there will be massive conflicts of interest with so many private sector firms having their fingers in the public purse wrt to consultancy etc.

withorwithoutyou

DH is out of his job too.

Good lord. I despair, really I do.

So, the govt get to cut the public sector headcount - and to what end?

This will cost (and I don't mean only in redundancy payments) a lot of money.

This government really are a bunch of shameless fuckers.

Quite apart from the sheer bloody idiocy of it, and the human cost (WOWY and Cece), I do wonder if this govt thinks of those of us in the public sector as quite real, somehow. You know, real peeople with ambition, integrity, training, some bloody USE.

(I'm a branch of NHS managwement for what it's worth, so have an axe to grind here!)

Speaking as a private sector auditor whose DH works for the Commission.....

• AC staff will probably get TUPEd across to the 'firms' or will remain in the 'private' alternative - somebody still has to do the work anyway
• many of the firms already do the same work as the AC already as contracts have been given to non-Commission entites for a while
• it's unlikely they'll be that many redundancies, after all, the providers of public sector services still need auditing
• apparently nothing is happening until 2012

am trying to be rational - dh has been at AC for 20+ years so this is a blow

pickles - appreciate your take on it but I wouldn't be so sure about redundancies. With cuts of up to 45% in government departments and 20% in the NHS, spending by councils, hospitals and GP commissioners is bound to be squeezed. What value is council chief exec going to put on audit when she or he has to defend sacking bin men and carers and sticking council tax up?

Did anyone hear PM this evening? Can't remember who it was (Tory, I presume) who said that the Audit Commission was a 'success story' -- originally put into place by Michael Heseltine to make public bodies more accountable, and now was a viable business.

DP could hear me shouting at the radio 3 floors up

Pickles, those of us in central directorates are screwed though - the audit staff might find work elsewhere but central directorate and performance staff will go.

I was already earmarked for redundancy anyway, so have come to terms with it.

But that's the point isn't it...the work still needs doing and the contracts are going to be 'given' to the private firms. The private firms are capable of doing the work but probably do not have the capacity to do all of it (and don't have the same level of expertise). Employment laws protect the AC staff - so that where the work goes, the staff go too (in exactly the same way the Arthur Anderson employees were transferred largely to Deloitte). The government still get their savings because the Commission will not exist anymore and the staff will become employees of the private firms. A double saving for the government because they don't have to fork out on the massive redundancy entitlements that the AC staff (especially the long timers) are entitled to.

I'm not saying there will be no redundancies in the Commission - there already has been a significant number and there are still pools under threat, but that the news doesn't necessarily mean that everybody will end up without a job.

All of that said, I am certain that ex-AC staff will not enjoy the same T&Cs they currently have (cars/final salary pensions etc).

x-post wowy - yep - I know - we have lots of friends in the Commission in various parts so are fully aware of what has been happening to all the non-auditors too. Don't get me wrong - I think the whole thing stinks.

Pickles was just on C4 news saying this was essentially a 'good news story' - what a total arse.

Privatisation often costs the government more than doing the work in house though - private companies may initially claim they can do it more cheaply, but costs mount. Look at PFI.

I don't think for a second that the private firms will do it more cheaply - I work in one of them so I know what we would charge compared to the AC.

It really does suck. I am ex-AC and now work for a PCT so am counting how many places I've worked in that the ConDems can abolish. Sure they can hand the audit work over to the private sector but I'm not convinced that they'll have the same teeth to pursue big cases like Shirley Porter without any kind of central function. And what Eric Pickles is avoiding saying is that there'll still need to be some coordinating function - presumably within the very Whitehall that they are slating. It just smacks of ideology and wanting to take out anything that has an independent voice within the system (see also abolishing the HFEA...)

I am very depressed....