Comments on: What Councillors should do

By: Rose

Rose — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 12:27:23 +0000

I have been cut off from reading your blog because the public library where I use the computers had a very small fire in a back staff room during the early hours one day last week and is now shut indefinitely. So one can't get at any of the books or papers either. I am now in one of the branch libraries in the suburbs where no arrangements have been made by the council to extend the limited hours or reinforce the staff. As one of my socialist friends pointed out indignantly, if the main library were a private business it would have opened the morning after as if nothing had happened. Furthermore, as the computers are "free", it has driven out of business all the city centre internet cafes, and appears in the Lonely Planet Guide as offering free internet access to anyone passing through. Your plea for smaller government both nationally and locally is ringing in my ears. It should at any rate be much less ambitious in the "services" it offers to the whole world.

By: Steve Horgan

Steve Horgan — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 12:15:38 +0000

As a Councillor since 1999 and a holder of executive posts since 2002, I agree with every one of Mr. Redwood's points. The comments, however, are another matter. The suggestion that some Councillors should be drawn only from the business community is unnecessary and dangerous. Many Councillors already come from the business community and if you start having special representation for sections of the community then it won't stop with just business, every interest group will want 'their' Councillors. Also, the idea that such people would be 'non-political' is, frankly, naive. Attacking Councillors allowances is always a good one; in what other area do you try to attract better people by paying them less? Then there are the consultants: the reason to employ consultants is for specialist skills that you do not otherwise have and which you do not need in the long term. So, in my Council we hire specialist property consultants for large regeneration projects or IT consultancies to design our new CCTV system. What we don't do is have the same consultants employed year after year, or to tell us what Council policy should be.

Here is Basildon we have taken millions off the structural costs of the Council since assuming control, and we run a tight financial operation. It can be done.

By: Rose

Rose — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 13:21:20 +0000

PS to Steven L: Universities do this too.

By: Steven_L

Steven_L — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 23:48:46 +0000

The biggest one, that I've yet to hear anyone make a worthwhile suggestion on how to counter, is the culture of public sector accounting and finance.

Every single department in any council is guilty of doing it. The problem is that they spend their end of year budget surplus on anything they can think of lest it be cut the next year, even fourty pound an hour consultants that do little more than make the tea and take long lunches!

The incentive to do this needs to be removed, somehow, but I have no idea how.

Reply: WHEN I WAS A COUNTY COUNCILLOR I USED TO PUT SPECIAL CONTROLS ON SPENDING IN FEB AND MARCH TO TRY TO AVOID THAT.

By: Adrian Windisch

Adrian Windisch — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 22:35:50 +0000

Actually most councillors get very little, around Â£8000 for a part time job. They would need a second part time job in order to live, one that let them get to evening meetings. Cutting this would mean only the wealthy or retired could do it, or perhaps the corrupt.

The average UK salary is around Â£24,000, which contrasts with the huge +Â£60,000 the MPs get, with golden pensions and huge expenses, taxis, mortgandes paid etc.

reply:I DID NOT COMPLAIN ABOUT COUNCILLORS PAY BUT ABOUT CEO PAY. I WANT TO SEE COUNCILLORS EXERCISE MORE CONTROL OVER CEOS. THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN MPS AND COUNCILLORS IS THAT BEING AN MP IS SOMEONE'S MAIN JOB WHEREAS WORKING AGE COUNCILLORS HAVE MAIN JOBS ELSEWHERE.

By: Rose

Rose — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 14:23:29 +0000

You don't, I think, mention, unless I have missed it, the argument for taking education of the back of the council tax payer.

When the education of poor and orphaned children cost next to nothing, it was paid for by the council, often inheriting the duty from local benefactors, or by the Church. It was the same for housing, which was another form of almsgiving in the past.

It is an anomaly that modern schools, housing, and the ever-growing social services, with their vast bureaucracies, should be competing for resources with street cleaning and lighting, care of pavements etc., the parks, and policing. These latter necessities were bound to be squeezed out by the powerful vested interests of the "caring" classes. But if the historical ways of doing things were being followed logically, education, welfare, and council housing would now all be being paid for by local businesses, not private OAPs, and those businesses would see to it that things were done efficiently, wouldn't they?.

By: a-tracy

a-tracy — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 09:49:57 +0000

Ah yes, the ALMO. Temp small well run businesses to apply and tender for work, jumping through hoops, spelling out exactly how they will perform and manage the contract in detail, take details off them of their current client base and how they function, then award the contract to an ALMO (usually with ex key staff placepersons in charge) who then uses all the best ideas from the innovative entrepreneurial sector for free.

By: Knowledge-is-power

Knowledge-is-power — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 20:53:16 +0000

An excellent article, however I think there is another, as yet unexplored abuse. Has anyone looked at the ALMOs? What are they? They are Arms Length Management Organisations. They are set up by the council to compete for work that has by law to be offered out to tender. Surprise surprise they win the contract, and everything is nicely protected from those nasty, uncaring private companies.
Surely a suitable focus for the audit commission?

By: Puncheon

Puncheon — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 19:51:14 +0000

I agree with Glyn H. But I Have one additional thought – if we had a rule that central Government could never impose duties on local Government it would save a good deal of the shenanigans that goes on at present. Let local Government deal with truly local concerns as it thinks fit.

By: Glyn H

Glyn H — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 14:02:48 +0000

Councillors should only be paid directly incurred expenses â€“ it is a voluntary public service that they undertake. Labour has sought to undermine that by encouraging â€˜professionalâ€™ councillors â€“ sometimes even employees of neighbouring councils. We should immediately abolish all these ludicrous titles such as â€˜Cabinet (if you please!) member for the environment and officials should have proper job titles such as â€˜Town Clerkâ€™ and â€˜accounts managerâ€™ rather than â€˜Director of Corporateâ€¦â€™. I have today telephoned the â€˜Leisure Managerâ€™ of a District Council to be told he is having a day off but so is his PA. One secretary should be quite enough for such a being. We should reintroduce the business vote. We should abolish Local education authorities in their present form and look hard at this idea of parents being able to set up competitive schools. Much of this trouble goes back to Mrs T having to curb loony left councils, such as those run by Frank Dobson, Lady Hodge and Derek Hatton. Labour has ramped the unintended consequences up for their own electoral ends.