Sargeant needs to look closer to home!

As Local Government Minister, Carl Sargeant addressed the 'movers and shakers' at today's Welsh Local Government Association conference in Swansea. There was one sentence in the whole speech that struck me as being significant:

And it gives me and indeed you a chance to challenge complacency, under-performance and senseless bureaucracy.

He was obviously referring to Local Government alone forgetting of course that the civil servants of the Welsh Government have never exactly covered themselves in glory and as we already know the cold winds of recession never reaches the corridors of Cathays Park or Ty Crughywel because of pay protection and redeployment.

Local Government are not frightened of change, the challenge of collaboration has gathered pace over the last 18 months and no doubt will continue to do so. But why does local government have to take all the pain whilst Carl Sargeant, Leighton Andrews, Edwina Hart and Lesley Griffiths continue to protect their own overpaid bureaucrats within HNS Wales and other departments.