Coming back from leave is always a bit of a shock to the system, but returning from a summer break yesterday, I was met with the upheaval of the Department of Communities and Local Government ministerial team.
While Eric Pickles is still in post, it's all change elsewhere. So will it be good news or bad news for local government?
There was a time when hanging on to Mr Pickles in a reshuffle would have been seen as the worst possible outcome for many in local government. He took ministerial unpopularity to entirely new levels – not least because he held up the sector as a lamb to slaughter when it came to the cuts.
Singling out individuals in a bid to highlight his dislike for rising senior salaries was not so much using a sledgehammer to crack a nut, and more like a demolition crane. But it got action.
Whether you agree with his policies or not, Mr Pickles has achieved a lot in local government since his arrival. Many of his predecessors, of varying popularity, have failed to shift the agenda forward.
Now we are mid-term, and a reshuffle has re-invigorated the government. Batten down the hatches for another onslaught of policies from the rather direct secretary of state. The benefit of Mr Pickles will always be that everyone knows where we stand and we have a commitment to localism. That may have been lost in a reshuffle.
Two of the more popular ministers, Bob Neill and Greg Clark, will be a loss to the department. Mr Neill not only understood the sector, but also provided the diplomacy to the sector that his boss lacked. We will have to wait and see if Brandon Lewis can do the good cop, bad cop routine so well.
It is Greg Clark's move to the Treasury – with his cities agenda – that interests me the most. He has been keen offer his services, clearing the way for local government to do what it wants. The Treasury has always been more of an ally to local government than most departments. As one local government insider told me, HMT is likely to add more bite to the city deals than the DCLG ever could.
As much as Eric Pickles is the ‘devil we know', the new ministers are an unknown quantity. They have a good local government background – but that has not always been a good thing in the past. It remains to be seen what they can do for the sector in the run up to the next general election.
