Secretary of State answers the public's #AskPickles questions
22 January 2014
On Wednesday 22 January the Communities and Local Government Committee held its much anticipated #AskPickles session with Eric Pickles, the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government.
Click on the links below to see Mr Pickles' answers to particular questions
Local Democracy
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Will you bring council meetings into the 21st century by ending rules requiring council agendas to be sent to Cllrs in hard copy? (@ADSO_UK with similar questions from others, including: @maidstonebc, @tweatirs, @martin_whelan81, @gibson_jenni)
Localism
Local Government Finance
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Eric why are many northern, urban areas suffering much bigger cuts – more than five times per head than those in the south? (This question was asked by a large number of people)
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Will you support an independent commission into local government funding to ensure the fairer distribution of funds? (@RobWhiteman; Rob Whiteman is the Chief Executive of CIPFA)
Funding for local services
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Eric what will you do for Oxfordshire’s children who face losing 38 of their 44 children’s centres? (@NeilCrowley and several others)
Local Government Management
Planning
House building and housing markets
Housing standards and building regulations
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Why do you listen to SAVE and not to the local residents of the Welsh Streets, who voted unanimously for Demolition Come see them? (@MaryHuxham1; this relates to the dispute over the demolition of houses in the former Housing Market Renewal area in Anfield, Liverpool)
Management of the Department
Background to #AskPickles session
MPs on the Committee wanted to ensure that their questions reflected pressing concerns in the world of local government and asked people to submit their questions via Twitter between 28 November to 4 December 2013.
During this period, the hashtag #AskPickles appeared in 1600 tweets. The original session had been planned for 9 December but unfortunately Mr Pickles was unwell.
Time restrictions limited the number of subjects that the Committee was able to address and there are therefore many important issues that were not raised with the Secretary of State.
The headings outline the broad areas of questioning covered; the links correspond to the relevant point of the #AskPickles recording. The questions listed are either those that were asked directly to the Secretary of State or examples of the kinds of questions that inspired the Committee’s lines of questioning.