VIDEO: Treasury minister pops to Sutton after encounter in veg aisle (From Your Local Guardian)

VIDEO: Treasury minister pops to Sutton after encounter in veg aisle

7:00am Thursday 8th July 2010

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The chief secretary to the Treasury Danny Alexander paid a whistle-stop tour to Sutton after a chance meeting in the fruit and veg aisle.

The MP for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey, was shopping in Balham’s Sainsbury’s when Ben Rowland from Tribal Consulting recommended he see how the council is making savings.

During his visit on Friday - the first of his regional visits for the Government’s Spending Review designed to reduce Britain's £156bn deficit - Mr Alexander met council leader Sean Brennan and police borough commander Guy Ferguson.

Speaking to the Sutton Guardian, Mr Alexander would not be drawn on the future of Sutton Magistrates Court, which is currently under threat of closure, saying he was “not going to get into decisions like that”.

He would not speculate on how Sutton Council could make further savings, saying it was down to the council themselves to decide.

However he said he wanted to decrease the amount of bureaucracy between central and local Government and make ring-fenced funding more flexible.

He said: “We have got a huge problem with our finance and the legacy we have inherited from the previous Government...that means finding savings across the public sector.

“What I was struck by in the conversations with the chief executive and the leading councilllors is this is the start of a process.

“They started on the travel side and the employment side and these are ways of doing things that can be extended across the full range of what the council does.”

Outgoing chief executive Paul Martin, who will be advising on the spending review, said Mr Alexander’s comments about giving local government more flexibility were music to his ears.

He also said the council wanted to move towards a commissioning model as it looked to make savings.

He said: “There is a risk that we will lose control over the services, but when we commission services there is a formal agreement.

“Commissioning services is better value for money.”