Would you vote in favour of raising taxes?
Discussion
BlackLabel said:
If only elderly care could be privatised somehow, what with the Private Sector being so much more efficient.My council spend £43 mill a year on 'child protection, and £91 mill on services to 'elderly and vulnerable people'. Highly emotive language, I'd prefer to see a more specific breakdown with info concerning litigation costs etc. These two dwarf any other costs, I presume pension costs aren't in there.
Hmm, do you really expect me to believe that our Public Services are run so efficiently that the slightest drop in funding would necessitate a reduction in services?
This lie has been trotted out so often that the General Public seem to take it as Gospel. The political games that are played when a Government of a different flavour tries to cut public expenditure and the local councils of a different flavour decide that this must equate to reduced funding for the most needy of their constituents and bleat about it to all the press about how bad X Government is because look what they made us do, rather than the sensible option of looking at the enormous wastage spent on the meetings to decide when to hold the meetings to decide who should decide what sort of biscuits should be served to the senior council members dogs.
Once the enormous levels of wastage have been dealt with then maybe we can talk about raising taxes, and no I'm not saying that the doctors, nurses, teachers etc are a waste of money, but those that implement numerous levels of bureaucracy, middle management and red tape etc that stop the doctors, nurses, teachers etc from doing their jobs are.
This lie has been trotted out so often that the General Public seem to take it as Gospel. The political games that are played when a Government of a different flavour tries to cut public expenditure and the local councils of a different flavour decide that this must equate to reduced funding for the most needy of their constituents and bleat about it to all the press about how bad X Government is because look what they made us do, rather than the sensible option of looking at the enormous wastage spent on the meetings to decide when to hold the meetings to decide who should decide what sort of biscuits should be served to the senior council members dogs.
Once the enormous levels of wastage have been dealt with then maybe we can talk about raising taxes, and no I'm not saying that the doctors, nurses, teachers etc are a waste of money, but those that implement numerous levels of bureaucracy, middle management and red tape etc that stop the doctors, nurses, teachers etc from doing their jobs are.
anonymous said:
[redacted]
Not only are they posted on the website. There's at least one statutory meeting where local electors are able to question the Auditors directly on any aspect of the Accounts. There's also a 2 week period during which local electors are entitled to go through all invoices, expense claim forms etc if they choose to do so.Troubleatmill said:
Seeing the published numbers tells you something - but very little.
Having a couple of weeks going through the numbers at a transactional level and observing what everyone is actually doing - will tell you very quickly how much wastage there is.
As mentioned above, as a local elector you can go through ALL the councils expenditure at a transactional level. IIRC Councils now have to publish all expenditure over £500 on their website anyway.Having a couple of weeks going through the numbers at a transactional level and observing what everyone is actually doing - will tell you very quickly how much wastage there is.
"Observing what everyone is doing" would tell you as much as "observing the diagnostic machine when it's plugged into your OBD port" tells you about what's wrong with your car. To some people it will be as plain as day (the ones who know what they're looking for, who may have worked in that particular industry, or are at least extremely competent amateurs.). I'm not sure how the average person would be able to tell how good or efficient the average teacher, social worker, or matron in a care home was.
A few years ago I remember reading an article about an elderly couple who audited their local councils expenditure and found a shocking amount of wastage.
If I had a vote on whether to approve a large increase, I'd want to run my own independent audit first to see how much wastage there was. Not just trust the councils own audit. Despite audit's being done 'independently', unless I could do it myself, I would not believe what I was being told, too much water under the bridge.
Make the council as efficient as possible before asking Joe Public to stump up more money.
Only my view and no doubt others disagree, but I'd be voting No if Middlesbrough council ever decide to ask the town for an inflation busting increase without opening themselves to scrutiny first.
If I had a vote on whether to approve a large increase, I'd want to run my own independent audit first to see how much wastage there was. Not just trust the councils own audit. Despite audit's being done 'independently', unless I could do it myself, I would not believe what I was being told, too much water under the bridge.
Make the council as efficient as possible before asking Joe Public to stump up more money.
Only my view and no doubt others disagree, but I'd be voting No if Middlesbrough council ever decide to ask the town for an inflation busting increase without opening themselves to scrutiny first.
Edited by AClownsPocket on Friday 30th December 21:04
I am happy to pay more local taxes once the councils actually get rid of their poorer performing staff. At present, and for very many years to date, the practice has been to simply move the poor performers to other roles within the council, rather than take disciplinary action. From comments made by others, it seems that this wasteful practice is quite common in many councils. Inevitably, the managers sanctioning such action need to be replaced as well.
Gordon Brown pulled the same trick with National Insurance, he thought (rightly) that people would be happy to pay more NI because 'it's for the NHS, honest', whereas there was some resistance to paying higher rates of PAYE, but it's just sleight of hand. Tax is tax, one way or another it ends up in the same pot,
It's generally easier to increase charges in a monopoly situation where payment is required by law than to achieve meaningful efficiency savings.
2013 article http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/scotland/98...
Are there not more efficient councils that can be used as a benchmark?
2013 article http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/scotland/98...
Are there not more efficient councils that can be used as a benchmark?
A tax rise to increase the number of prison places to around 120,000 would be OK alongside sentencing guidelines that required full sentences being served for violent crime. 120,000 is the approx number of repeat/serious offenders known to ACPO; rehabilitation=waste of time and money. The return on investment of having those individuals locked up pretty much permanently would be well worth it.
sidicks said:
BIANCO said:
I just hope you didnt come up with all that when you should have been working. 
The majority of it is pure fiction, so wouldn't have taken long to produce!From memory I posted this at about midnight. It took a while to get across the points I thought were important, but I see a couple of typos got through.
I appreciate the comments: I shared my opinion to try and be useful to the discussion, and am probably as guilty as others of having preconceived notions about the issue.
I recall sidekicks has a pensions background, which I don't.
My opinion of public pay being low is formed from direct observation of me against my (charted accountants with 5 _ 10 years experience) and I stand by them.
I would proffer the view that direct comparison is not sensible for private /-public now. Many of the low added value roles have been outsourced ( refuse, grounds maint, call centre even admin service centres). Howeve, large numbers of low ish paid nhs staff, and low paid teaching assistants will make it hard to get a meaningful analysis of the headlines.
But I still stand by the opinions that a) pensions have been over generous, but there's no point crying over spilt milk, and moves are be ing made to address it
b) poverty line pensioners does no one any good and
c) yes, pensions need to be affordable, but the private sector just seem to be ignoring the problem with fingers in the ears. The public sector is sticking to its principle that reward for work should include their employees'retirement as well.
If people think that's wrong, well so be it.
The fact the entire public sector is "subsidised" by the "private" sector aka taxpayers is a given anyway, so hardly needed pointing out.
The bottom line is our whole society is unaffordable: people just know better than to ask questions they don't want to know the answer to.
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.
Right, no more, that's it.
Ian
Ps council tax can actually go up by 4.99pc now anyway. Did liverpool say yea or nay to this?
Pps reading from archive releases about how Poll Tax slayed Thatcher. Took £6bn in 1990 to replace with council tax, paid for by an increase in VAT.
Who is ever going to dare deal with funding of locally provided public services?
Ian Geary said:
My opinion of public pay being low is formed from direct observation of me against my (charted accountants with 5 _ 10 years experience) and I stand by them.
Various in-depth comparisons have been made which disagree with you- on the whole rather than just a narrow segment as you suggest.Ian Geary said:
I still stand by the opinions that a) pensions have been over generous
very kind of you to concede that which has already been accepted by both sides.Ian Geary said:
there's no point crying over spilt milk
Why would you cry when you're the recipient of massive largesse?Ian Geary said:
and moves are being made to address it
Too little too late & the public sector have been screaming about it.Ian Geary said:
poverty line pensioners does no one any good
I respectfully suggest that nobody is advocating this & public sector pensions are some considerable distance from the poverty line.Ian Geary said:
pensions need to be affordable
butIan Geary said:
The public sector is sticking to its principle that reward for work should include their employees'retirement as well.
Reasonable reward would be fine- the current setup is unreasonable due to its unsustainability.Ian Geary said:
Who is ever going to dare deal with funding of locally provided public services?
Instead of taxing more money we could perhaps try spending less. I put it to you that a great deal of waste exists, especially in layers of inefficient management & poorly performing staff; I've seen it first hand.
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!
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!
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