Local councils have 8 days to sort pay crisis due to Icelandic banks.

tomstickland

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/council-salaries-hit-by-bank-collapses-958697.html

Generali

The Local Government Association has just eight days to avert a catastrophe, senior sources warned. The LGA has urged the Treasury not to insist on prompt payment of nearly £1bn in business taxes owed by councils and due on 20 October, to free up cash and allow staff to be paid.

2 thoughts:

1. It's amazing that the credit crunch has come to the point whereby the Government is going to have to print money to pay the wages of it's employees before we've even started a recession!

2. What sort of fcked up system do we have whereby the Treasury pays a load of money to councils (about 70-80% of local council spending comes from central Government I think) only for those councils to pay a load of it back in taxes? That has to be the dumbest idea ever.
You pay a load of people to take taxes from us taxpayers. Then you pay a load more people to pay that money to local councils. Then you pay people in those councils to take the money in. Then you pay people in the council to pay the money back to the treasury. Then you pay people in the Treasury to accept that money.

Stupid, thieving, freedom hating, idiots. You can bet they wouldn't make that system up if it was their own money.

GDB2222

I'm not very happy with my local council after they parked 20% of the year's budget in Icesave. I'm afraid that I'm thinking rather unkind, uncharitable thoughts about how good it would be if the staff couldn't be paid on time.

Poppy9

My LA didn't invest in Icesave but I understand that neighbouring authorities did but they were following Govt. guidelines and that it wasn't deemed overly risky.

If council staff don't get paid it would be catastrophic. No homecare (even if it's via a private agency as no money to pay them, no residential care in either private or council owned property, no schools open as staff wages wouldn't be paid, no rubbish collected, no roads maintained, no enviromental health etc.

Debt_Free_Chick

Not paying Council employees is bad enough .... but wait until the Council starts cutting back on services ... :eek:

tomstickland

I have to admit to enjoying rubber necking.

Generali

tomstickland wrote: »

I have to admit to enjoying rubber necking.

I'll enjoy it a lot more once I'm in Aus and no longer expected to pay for it all.

tomstickland

You're going to be feeling very pleased with yourself!

blisk

Generali wrote: »

2 thoughts:

1. It's amazing that the credit crunch has come to the point whereby the Government is going to have to print money to pay the wages of it's employees before we've even started a recession!

2. What sort of fcked up system do we have whereby the Treasury pays a load of money to councils (about 70-80% of local council spending comes from central Government I think) only for those councils to pay a load of it back in taxes? That has to be the dumbest idea ever.

Smoke and mirrors.

We are all waking up to the fact that we have been conned for the last 10 years.

beingjdc

Generali wrote: »

2. What sort of fcked up system do we have whereby the Treasury pays a load of money to councils (about 70-80% of local council spending comes from central Government I think) only for those councils to pay a load of it back in taxes? That has to be the dumbest idea ever.
You pay a load of people to take taxes from us taxpayers. Then you pay a load more people to pay that money to local councils. Then you pay people in those councils to take the money in. Then you pay people in the council to pay the money back to the treasury. Then you pay people in the Treasury to accept that money.

It's a bit silly, and there are historical reasons for it having ended up that way, but essentially the problem is how to do local business tax. If it wasn't collected by the Government then shared back out, Westminster Council with Oxford Street and so on would make enough to deliver meals on wheels with gold-plated cutlery, whereas Doncaster would have to give all its starving pensioners bread and water.

Generali

beingjdc wrote: »

It's a bit silly, and there are historical reasons for it having ended up that way, but essentially the problem is how to do local business tax. If it wasn't collected by the Government then shared back out, Westminster Council with Oxford Street and so on would make enough to deliver meals on wheels with gold-plated cutlery, whereas Doncaster would have to give all its starving pensioners bread and water.

Surely it would be better just to reduce the amount of the grant to reflect that.

We have a system of Government in this country where Civil Servants are employed to monitor Civil Servants. Things are counted twice and three times, the data put on a hard drive and left in a pub somewhere. Trivial things are given huge importance and important things are ignored entirely, often at great expense.