It says here councils waste your Council Tax
Discussion
It is interesting that a common theme that you often hear when talking about Councils wasting money is that they should club together and buy things together.
Why then were so many councils split up into so many smaller ones in the past?
Some Council departments in smaller authorities are so small and lack staff and funds that they are almost completley useless. I know of a couple of departments within Councils that have agreements to basically join together to share services between residents - basically they have just reversed Council split ups or formed new mini council departments. Some would say its undemocratic but others would argue its necessary.
Why then were so many councils split up into so many smaller ones in the past?
Some Council departments in smaller authorities are so small and lack staff and funds that they are almost completley useless. I know of a couple of departments within Councils that have agreements to basically join together to share services between residents - basically they have just reversed Council split ups or formed new mini council departments. Some would say its undemocratic but others would argue its necessary.
mybrainhurts said:
Why would you doubt it? It's not their money they are wasting....Jasandjules said:
mybrainhurts said:
Why would you doubt it? It's not their money they are wasting....
EDLT said:
This. They waste the money on purpose, otherwise they won't get it again next year.
My experience is that the budget is used to pay for the essentials - at the end of the year the left over moneY is used to fund stuff that is still useful and serves a purpose but may not have been possible to buy until next years budget if this years had run out. Obviously every department within every council will be different but I wouldnt say budgets were 'wasted'. I was never a manager in a council so oculdnt give you the ins and out but for exmaple at the end of the financial year if there was some money left over in the pot we could replace that old bit of kit that was borerline obselete - for example, one year we were able to replace a VHS for a DVD.
Our department often sent things off to court so it meant we could send DVDs instead of VHS. Just a shame the court service sturggled to catch up
Surely the type of waste that we're talking about is this scenario:-
1) Call up to report a pothole, call centre take report and pass to Highways.
2) Highways man comes out and measures potholes (there are a few all in a row)
3) Workers come out and fill the bits of the pothole that exceed the maximum depth and leave other bits untouched (all on the same row)
4) Ring call centre to report that the mess hasn't been swept up afterwards (chunks of gravel hitting the car isn't good) Call centre explain it's not the first set of worker's job to sweep up. Report passed to Cleansing.
5) Cleansing come out with a brush and clear the road.
four to five weeks later:-
6) Call the call centre to report that road surface has broken up around the gaps in tarmac due to workers only filling the parts of trench that exceeded minimum depth
7) Highways man comes to measure and inspect....
ARGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Why not fix the f
king thing properly in the first place? And if the staff won't sweep up their own mess because "it's not their job and they don't have a brush" then fking sack them!!!
1) Call up to report a pothole, call centre take report and pass to Highways.
2) Highways man comes out and measures potholes (there are a few all in a row)
3) Workers come out and fill the bits of the pothole that exceed the maximum depth and leave other bits untouched (all on the same row)
4) Ring call centre to report that the mess hasn't been swept up afterwards (chunks of gravel hitting the car isn't good) Call centre explain it's not the first set of worker's job to sweep up. Report passed to Cleansing.
5) Cleansing come out with a brush and clear the road.
four to five weeks later:-
6) Call the call centre to report that road surface has broken up around the gaps in tarmac due to workers only filling the parts of trench that exceeded minimum depth
7) Highways man comes to measure and inspect....
ARGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Why not fix the f
king thing properly in the first place? And if the staff won't sweep up their own mess because "it's not their job and they don't have a brush" then fking sack them!!!crankedup said:
Is that Councils of all political colours?
I would guess that most councils regardless of the politics are actually ran day to day by salaried officers rather than the politicians. These salaried officers employ as many people at as high a level as possible to earn salary boosts at job evaluation, have some of the least high pressure work to do but massively good benefits packages, holidays that the public sector can only dream of and in some authorities sickness records that make career benefit claimants look hard working.
I know my local authority has made some very odd money saving decisions this last year, such as closing libraries, removing transport subsidy and making a whole team of staff that were very good at what they did to free up office space, they also spent a small fotune relocating a team to new premises and then put that building up for sale 1 month later.
I could go on but examples are available around the country. It isn't all bad though we do get teh dubious honour of paying the 3rd highest rate of CT in the country.
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