Pickles Challenged On Quango Savings

The chair of the Audit Commission has said the savings made by abolishing the body will be a fifth of those claimed by ministers. Speaking to the communities and local government select committee, Michael O’Higgins said scrapping the body will save £10 million rather than £50 million. Eric Pickles said he expected to make the £50 million saving when he announced his intention to scrap the commission in August. Mr O’Higgins said: ‘All of our corporate costs are around £50 million, but we think that the saving will be more like £10 million: £5 million from studies functions and £5 million from regulation and quality assurance function.’ He said the cost of redundancy for the commission’s staff would be at least £40 million, on top of the £27 million already paid out after comprehensive area assessments were scrapped. He said that this could rise to £105 million if all employees were made redundant. Read more on Inside Housing.