John Prescott has accused striking firefighters of costing poor communities millions of pounds of regeneration money.
Speaking at a select committee hearing on Monday, the deputy prime minister said: "The

current dispute with the fire department has cost [my department] £70m net. This means there is less money for other priorities as it has to be taken from the regeneration budgets – from the most vulnerable."

One regeneration source said the money has come out of the regeneration pot simply because the government has underspent on regeneration schemes in recent years.

The source added: "If it's coming from next year's budget, then there's an assumption that this poor performance and underspending could continue."

However, a different source said Prescott was using the regeneration budget as a way of stirring up support for the government's stance against the striking firefighters.

He said the situation "smacked of a degree of political mischief", and added: "It's in the government's interest to get as many stakeholders as possible against the firemen and to make it sound like the greedy firemen are taking money away from the communities."

At the hearing, the deputy prime minister also defended the government's line on meeting the decent homes target by 2010.

In answer to a question about the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister's commitment to its targets for decent homes, Prescott said: "We are on target and we are measuring this by looking at local authorities expenditure on this and we will keep badgering them to stick to the agreed targets."

ODPM permanent secretary Margaret McDonald, who was also giving evidence to the select committee, added: "We are doing better risk assessments to see how local authorities are achieving targets and we are looking at various options to see if local authorities need adjustments – some of these will be outlined in the Communities Plan next week."

Source

Housing Today