Would you vote in favour of raising taxes?

[Tryke3]

REALIST123 said:

Not me. Not for local or central government. IME there are plenty of 'services' that are very poor value for money and could be stopped and lots of money wasted at all levels.

I doubt that the people of Liverpool will all think that way though.

Excellent post, i understand those poor value for money services being those which you dont use ? Thought so

[The Moose]

55palfers said:

My council have just spent close on £7.0M on a bus lane to save 8 minutes on journey times for near 1700 bus users at peak times.

http://www.solihull.gov.uk/news/ArtMID/820/Article...

Probably ten times that number are now sat in their cars for longer than they used to.

The bus lane also operates 24/7 for some reason, so most of the day the lane is deserted.

More taxes for the council - no!, no! and thrice, no!

This is something that pissed me off recently. Why have bus lanes? Why not have car pool lanes? Makes much more sense to me!

[Jasandjules]

Tryke3 said:

Excellent post, i understand those poor value for money services being those which you dont use ? Thought so

Well, why do we have bus lanes? Can this actually be answered? Why is there a special road made alongside the normal road which is left empty 98% of the day? The cost of installing a whole road must be immense yet it is then not used. Why are those who take buses (or taxis) more important than the rest of us who drive places ?

[superlightr]

Ian Geary said:

Pension unaffordability is just one aspect, but I personally think businesses should offer pensions schemes. If they have to charge customers more (or cut profits) so be it.

Interesting to hear your views re the pension and private businesses - as small business owner we do have to by law contribute to our staff pension.

If we cut profits there would be very little left to pay tax on which in turn would mean we cant run a business and pay our business rates and personally my council tax.

Kill the golden goose and everyone loses.

[MKnight702]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

So?

All this means is that on balance all the transactions are correctly recorded, it won't state that the money was spent effectively and efficiently, just that the £150k bill for biscuits was correctly shown as biscuit expenses.

[Countdown]

MKnight702 said:

anonymous said:

[redacted]

So?

All this means is that on balance all the transactions are correctly recorded, it won't state that the money was spent effectively and efficiently, just that the £150k bill for biscuits was correctly shown as biscuit expenses.

"So" under Section 5 of the Audit Commission Act, when they are audited the auditors have to report if the Council has put in place systems / processes / procedures to ensure that it is operating economically, efficiently, and effectively.. This is a high level opinion but its more than just confirming that expenditure on biscuits was coded correctly

[Robertj21a]

Jasandjules said:

Well, why do we have bus lanes? Can this actually be answered? Why is there a special road made alongside the normal road which is left empty 98% of the day? The cost of installing a whole road must be immense yet it is then not used. Why are those who take buses (or taxis) more important than the rest of us who drive places ?

Partly because buses are far more efficient movers of people than individual cars/taxis. If 30-40 car loads were removed from that same road it would only take 1 bus to carry them all. The road would then be clearer, for 'essential users' (emergency services, delivery vans etc) and the emissions would be eased.

Many are not 'special roads made alongside the normal road', they're often just a lane within an existing road.

[Murph7355]

Robertj21a said:

Partly because buses are far more efficient movers of people than individual cars/taxis. If 30-40 car loads were removed from that same road it would only take 1 bus to carry them all. The road would then be clearer, for 'essential users' (emergency services, delivery vans etc) and the emissions would be eased.

Many are not 'special roads made alongside the normal road', they're often just a lane within an existing road.

What level of occupancy does your efficiency play assume?

And how are you judging "efficiency"? E.g how "end to end" are the calls?

[Terminator X]

Until they are seen to not be pissing money away I'm unsure how any vote would be successful. Same for the Govt if they ran one. I had a look on our LA's website recently and the amount spent on taxi's is insane ...

TX.

[Terminator X]

Jasandjules said:

Tryke3 said:

Excellent post, i understand those poor value for money services being those which you dont use ? Thought so

Well, why do we have bus lanes? Can this actually be answered? Why is there a special road made alongside the normal road which is left empty 98% of the day? The cost of installing a whole road must be immense yet it is then not used. Why are those who take buses (or taxis) more important than the rest of us who drive places ?

In London the bus lanes do open for other traffic non peak time however each lane seems to work slightly differently so you have to look for the signs before you venture in to that lane. Very confusing and perhaps ripe for fining car drivers

TX.

[Robertj21a]

Murph7355 said:

What level of occupancy does your efficiency play assume?

And how are you judging "efficiency"? E.g how "end to end" are the calls?

I'm not entering in to some battle of semantics (simply don't have the time for 'games'). If you don't want to accept my views that's fair enough. Free country and all that.

[Rovinghawk]

Countdown said:

the Council has put in place systems / processes / procedures to ensure that it is operating economically, efficiently, and effectively..

By whose standards?

[Murph7355]

Robertj21a said:

I'm not entering in to some battle of semantics (simply don't have the time for 'games'). If you don't want to accept my views that's fair enough. Free country and all that.

It's got nothing to do with semantics or games. It's important detail. If the buses in question only ever travel with 1 passenger... Or even 2 or 3 then fundamentally they are not more efficient.



The ideal world you would like to live in does not exist. Decisions on transport need to be made using solid data.

[Robertj21a]

Murph7355 said:

It's got nothing to do with semantics or games. It's important detail. If the buses in question only ever travel with 1 passenger... Or even 2 or 3 then fundamentally they are not more efficient.



The ideal world you would like to live in does not exist. Decisions on transport need to be made using solid data.

You won't believe how much I know that already !! - but at least you make me smile.

[anonymous-user]

Tryke3 said:

REALIST123 said:

Not me. Not for local or central government. IME there are plenty of 'services' that are very poor value for money and could be stopped and lots of money wasted at all levels.

I doubt that the people of Liverpool will all think that way though.

Excellent post, i understand those poor value for money services being those which you dont use ? Thought so

Actually, no. You're understanding is incorrect.

One such service that I have had occasion to have need of is my LA's so called Environmental Health Department. In the event, they turned out to be quite ineffective and over a 2.5 year period when they were supposed to be acting in a matter on behalf of my neighbours and me they achieved nothing. If that service were removed I doubt many would notice.

During that time they demonstrated a frankly shocking level of ineptitude, making numerous mistakes and having to repeatedly restart processes because of their errors.

In the end I gave up with them but my neighbours brought a complaint against the department and attempted to take it to a higher level. All that achieved was a closing of ranks and obfuscation that had to be seen to be believed.

I could go on. We have a local authority that seems to achieve very little with the significant budget it operates. Again in my experience the bettter managed services are those that have been fully outsourced.

[MDMetal]

Murph7355 said:

Robertj21a said:

I'm not entering in to some battle of semantics (simply don't have the time for 'games'). If you don't want to accept my views that's fair enough. Free country and all that.

It's got nothing to do with semantics or games. It's important detail. If the buses in question only ever travel with 1 passenger... Or even 2 or 3 then fundamentally they are not more efficient.



The ideal world you would like to live in does not exist. Decisions on transport need to be made using solid data.

Indeed I'd be all in favour of bus lanes if they operated the busses at reasonable times with reasonable frequency but the fact is come 6pm the service tales off and on a Sunday it can be 1 an hour 10-4 well that's just not good enough to go into a city and do some sunday activities is it? Bus companies can't be allowed to pick and choose the profitable times and turn off the service when it's not profitable for them. There should be enforced overlap times through peak hours to cover the fact that some passengers may god forbid want to leave work at 6:30 on a weekday, make the schedule under and over run by say 2 hours and make it run later. May not be AS profitable for the company but as long as they earn a profit it's surely worthwhile? Once a service is seen as regular and dependable the numbers using it will go up..

[Countdown]

Rovinghawk said:

Countdown said:

the Council has put in place systems / processes / procedures to ensure that it is operating economically, efficiently, and effectively..

By whose standards?

By the auditors standards.

[Murph7355]

Robertj21a said:

You won't believe how much I know that already !! - but at least you make me smile.

Whoever finds Utopia first should let the other know

[Countdown]

REALIST123 said:

I could go on. We have a local authority that seems to achieve very little with the significant budget it operates. Again in my experience the bettter managed services are those that have been fully outsourced.

The Council is accountable to the Councillors who, in turn, are accountable to local voters.

So whose fault would you say it is?

[Fastdruid]

Jasandjules said:

Tryke3 said:

Excellent post, i understand those poor value for money services being those which you dont use ? Thought so

Well, why do we have bus lanes? Can this actually be answered? Why is there a special road made alongside the normal road which is left empty 98% of the day? The cost of installing a whole road must be immense yet it is then not used. Why are those who take buses (or taxis) more important than the rest of us who drive places ?

Ah, I see your mistake here.

The idea is to make people use public transport. Unfortunately for the councils as we all know well, private transport is massively preferable to public transport[1] so even making buses, trains etc free doesn't work.
Hence the idea is to drive cars off the roads by making it as unpleasant as possible by adding as many obstacles as possible and making it the rest of the traffic slow down until the bus is quicker.

Of course it still doesn't work so we get empty buses once an hour past queue's of cars.

[1] Which as we all know smells of wee and of which has been said: A man who, beyond the age of 26, finds himself on a bus can count himself as a failure.