Local government secretary, Eric Pickles, has told town halls they will no longer have to ‘come to Whitehall with a begging bowl', once he has devolved new financial powers.
In his speech to the Local Government Association conference in Birmingham on 30 June, Mr Pickles said the coalition had already overseen a ‘decisive, fundamental and irreversible change in England's political geography' by ‘taking power away from Whitehall and putting it back into the hands of councils and communities'.
