Council Jobs to Go -10% Staff Saving Needed

Old_Slaphead

Generali wrote: »

Local authority pension schemes are probably some of the best funded in the UK AIUI.

Initial funding is employee 5-8% and employer 15-20%.

There's no evidence to suggest that these schemes are any better funded than most private final salary schemes (ok, the very few that are still in existance) there is still fund management underperformance but the taxpayer is obliged to make up the shortfall.

So, 2 lots of subsidy - still at least LA staff pay something unlike some other public sector schemes.

Poppy9

Old_Slaphead wrote: »

Initial funding is employee 5-8% and employer 15-20%.

There's no evidence to suggest that these schemes are any better funded than most private final salary schemes (ok, the very few that are still in existance) there is still fund management underperformance but the taxpayer is obliged to make up the shortfall.

So, 2 lots of subsidy - still at least LA staff pay something unlike some other public sector schemes.

I can remember when the LA contributed nothing for a few years to my LGPS (I do budgets hence I know %age LA contributing). Actuary valuation of the fund revealed that the LA could take a contribution holiday, employees of course had to continue contributing. Even then I can remember people thinking it very short sighted for the employer to contribute nothing to the pension fund for a few years.

Employer rate can be anything from 0% upwards. It's based on the fund valuation and moves year on year. We had the figures last week for 09/10 and it was about 19.3%

Old_Slaphead

deleted - duplicated posting - bloomin' computers !!

Old_Slaphead

Poppy9 wrote: »

I can remember when the LA contributed nothing for a few years to my LGPS (I do budgets hence I know %age LA contributing). Actuary valuation of the fund revealed that the LA could take a contribution holiday, employees of course had to continue contributing. Even then I can remember people thinking it very short sighted for the employer to contribute nothing to the pension fund for a few years.

In reality it doesn't make any difference how much the employer contributes each year as they have an open ended commitment to fund the scheme no matter what the cost (a feature of all FS schemes).
Based on current levels of funding (which differs from LA to LA) for my local authority it's around 17% for the next year.
Clearly if investment returns are lower than expected (either because of market and/or manager underperformance) as has happened this year then employer contributions will need to rise. The converse is, of course, true.

Whatever happens the employer subsidises the scheme in the first place then guarantees to make up for any investment underperformance

macaque_2

beingjdc

You'll be unsurprised to hear that Councils have done a lot of work on what it would cost to do things differently. The upshot is, we could provide most of what people think we should be providing for older people, but the Council Tax would have to go up by another 10% or so over and above the annual increase. There's some particularly good research on this by Hampshire. As things are, the financial situation means Councils have to ration their help both by providing it only to those with the greatest need for it, and by charging those who can afford to pay.

The biggest problem facing old people is poverty. Increasing the council tax will make this problem much worse. If you give money to local authorities, they will just create a raft of new jobs to 'help' the old. Given the amount of tax and NI people pay, current pensions are scandalous. The solution to this problem is reduced council tax and higher pensions.

This is a stupid point. You could say taxpayers fund everything funded by local authorities, since taxpayers are where the vast majority of local authorities get their money from.

Tax payers do fund everything and your response is symptomatic of a bad attitude in the public sector. Public service employees treat tax payers money like their own and angrily resist being called to account.

Because they are stuffed with children whose parents are committed to paying money for their education, so clearly value it more than average, who can afford that, so are presumably quite well-off and likely to be well-educated themselves, and because it's easier for a private school to expel disruptive children as they don't have a duty to teach all children like the state does.

This is not correct. Independant schools are better for two reasons. Firstly their customers are the parents of the children and secondly the schools manage their own affairs.

You really being are a fool. I've told you in detail how limited the LA section of the education budget is, and you refuse to listen. Both parties have backtracked from these proposals having realised they would be damaging to everyone concerned, particularly schoolchildren.

The fact that you have reacted with abuse suggests this is a sore point. Both Labour and the Conservatives have considered removing education from the LAs. The potential benefits of such a move are self evident. They backed down in the face of huge pressure from the public sector and unions. Sadly, public sector employees have more influence in such matters than parents.

It's nothing of the sort. There's nothing wrong with Councils using the services they provide on a commercial basis to private companies to raise money or at least break even, and use that to keep the Council tax down. Why should taxpayers subsidise restaurants and property developers?

Proportionate charges for specific services can be legitmate. Unfortunately, LAs are making far too many charges for their services and some of these charges are wildly excessive.

Who mentioned taking it away? Composting could be about providing help for people to do this in their own gardens. In any case, if you think chucking stuff in landfill and letting it decompose is a good way to get useful compost, I suggest you google the word 'leachate', and try to learn something.

Councils mentioned taking it away, thats who. If people want to do their own composting they don't need a nanny from the local authority to tell them how. Your reference to leachates proves that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

It's not sudden at all, in most civilised countries the hygiene standards of people who sell prepared food are inspected. 3 million years ago, I don't think many people went to dodgy kebab shops. They probably learnt for themselves how to tell if meat is off, or else died.

Before public servants start preaching to us about hygiene standards, they might stop killing thousands of people with infections in NHS hospitals. The reality is that food poisoning will always be with us and regular low levels of exposure to bugs is good for maintaining an efficient immune system. There are already a plethora of organisations controlling food standards without local councils exploiting it as a gravy train.

That's because, and only because, you made the wrong choice between having a constructive discussion in which you learned something, or making your ignorance a matter of pride. You chose the latter, and positively revel in not understanding things.

In my previous post I expressed disquiet about your patronising attitude. You have now responded with abuse (here and else in your response). If you arguements were fair and credibly you would not need to resort to abuse.

Well, it's mostly because in areas where there are two tiers of council, the government in its wisdom at some time decades ago chose to make different tiers responsible for collecting waste and disposing of it. Different specialisms around this grew up, and different private sector contracts were signed.

In the private sector, multiple tiers can be managed efficiently. With empire building LAs however, multiple tiers are fatal.

olly300

macaque wrote: »

beingjdc

The biggest problem facing old people is poverty. Increasing the council tax will make this problem much worse. If you give money to local authorities, they will just create a raft of new jobs to 'help' the old. Given the amount of tax and NI people pay, current pensions are scandalous. The solution to this problem is reduced council tax and higher pensions.

Tax payers do fund everything and your response is symptomatic of a bad attitude in the public sector. Public service employees treat tax payers money like their own and angrily resist being called to account.

It's been already quoted on this thread (and some people like me actually read the boring stories in newspapers ) that most of the money from council services comes from Central Government not council tax.

macaque wrote: »

This is not correct. Independant schools are better for two reasons. Firstly their customers are the parents of the children and secondly the schools manage their own affairs.

Rubbish.

The state has a duty to educate everyone.

The private and voluntary sector will kick a child out of the school if they don't maintain their standards.

There as it is difficult for state schools to do this.

Therefore state schools are stuck with children with social and behaviour problems.

Some teachers have stated that some of the best state school classes they have taught have been due to the fact that although the children have not been rich/middle class there are no children special needs or behaviour problems in the class.

macaque wrote: »

The fact that you have reacted with abuse suggests this is a sore point. Both Labour and the Conservatives have considered removing education from the LAs. The potential benefits of such a move are self evident. They backed down in the face of huge pressure from the public sector and unions. Sadly, public sector employees have more influence in such matters than parents.

If you look at the figures you will find it's not cost effective to have private company involvement in state schools. (Do some research on PFI on hospitals or the mess that is our railways.)

When I went to school the local council decided that they wanted to decrease the number of secondary schools but increase their capacity. The good comprehensives in my area which incidentally had their capacities increased decided to avoid further political interference so went grant maintained and managed their own budgets.

The council decided at the same time they wanted to set up a new school that had private company involvement so the council spent 2.5 the budget of a bigger grant maintained school on that school for 5 years. The private sector company involved in it also put money in. After the first two years of the school opening it was placed under special educational measures it took another 5 years for the school to come out of it.

The reason the school didn't do well was nothing to do with the money thrown at it and it's facilities but the fact that due to it's location it only attracted pupils from inner city London council estates. The other children in the immediate area either were educated in the grant maintained schools, in a different borough which had good comprehensive schools or privately.

macaque wrote: »

Proportionate charges for specific services can be legitmate. Unfortunately, LAs are making far too many charges for their services and some of these charges are wildly excessive.

Councils have a short fall in funding for essential services and are not allowed to increase council tax so they have to make the money somewhere. It's good business sense to charge as much as possible for services that are not essential and most people won't need.

Your posts tend to complain how waste full councils are but when they do something where they can earn money to fund other services you moan.

macaque wrote: »

Councils mentioned taking it away, thats who. If people want to do their own composting they don't need a nanny from the local authority to tell them how. Your reference to leachates proves that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

My council and lots of councils nearby compost food waste to reduce the amount that goes in landfill as putting waste in landfill is more expensive. Lots of people don't have gardens and even people with gardens are advised not to put food scraps in their main compost bin due to rodent problems, so if the council didn't provide this service then it would go into landfill.

With Green waste you have a choice of:
1. Paying for it to be collected
2. Taking it to the tip
3. Composting it yourself

My council has decided it's cheaper to pay one person minimum wage for a year to get people recycling more and composting than what they would have to pay in landfill tax in the future.

macaque wrote: »

Before public servants start preaching to us about hygiene standards, they might stop killing thousands of people with infections in NHS hospitals. The reality is that food poisoning will always be with us and regular low levels of exposure to bugs is good for maintaining an efficient immune system. There are already a plethora of organisations controlling food standards without local councils exploiting it as a gravy train.

Local councils are not exploiting any gravy train when it comes to food safety. In fact they try and get away as doing as little as possible as Environmental Health Officers tend to be responsible for more than one area of law.

Environmental Health Officers only take action in the most disgusting of cases for example:
1. A decomposing human body in area used for food preparation.
2. A supermarket warned repeatedly to sort out it's food storage areas due to rodents being found in the food.
3. A person who had been banned from opening a food premise in England and Wales due to their disgusting habits trying to open another one in a different area.

macaque wrote: »

In my previous post I expressed disquiet about your patronising attitude. You have now responded with abuse (here and else in your response). If you arguements were fair and credibly you would not need to resort to abuse.

You entered a debate but refused to read beingjdc or any body elses replies even though the information that beingjdc has quoted is in the public domain.

macaque wrote: »

In the private sector, multiple tiers can be managed efficiently. With empire building LAs however, multiple tiers are fatal.

I don't know what companies you have worked for but there are plenty of empire building individuals in private companies.

macaque_2

olly

It's been already quoted on this thread (and some people like me actually read the boring stories in newspapers ) that most of the money from council services comes from Central Government not council tax.

Calm down, no one is denying this. If government was giving less to local councils, there would be more money for impoverished pensioners.

Rubbish.
The state has a duty to educate everyone.
The private and voluntary sector will kick a child out of the school if they don't maintain their standards. There as it is difficult for state schools to do this. Therefore state schools are stuck with children with social and behaviour problems. Some teachers have stated that some of the best state school classes they have taught have been due to the fact that although the children have not been rich/middle class there are no children special needs or behaviour problems in the class.

I'm sorry but it is true. Independant schools are renowned for their ability to transform mixed ability children into decent well educated people. The bottom line is that parents make much better supervisors of schools than LAs. Schools also perform much better when liberated from the shackles of state control. As for expelling children, I'm afraid that is an essential part of any formula for success. Why should well behaved children suffer because the ignorant LAs block expulsions. Policies like this make good discipline impossible. When a child is expelled in the private sector, the school usually makes sure the child gets into another school. The shock of one expulsion is almost always enough to solve the problem.

If you look at the figures you will find it's not cost effective to have private company involvement in state schools. (Do some research on PFI on hospitals or the mess that is our railways.)

I agree that a hibrid arrangements between the state and the private sector are often a disaster. A news item a couple of years ago reported that the cost of state education has now exceeded some independant day schools. The problem is that not enough of this money reaches the schools. Clearly the answer is some form of voucher system.

When I went to school the local council decided that they wanted to decrease the number of secondary schools but increase their capacity. The good comprehensives in my area which incidentally had their capacities increased decided to avoid further political interference so went grant maintained and managed their own budgets.

Good for them.

The council decided at the same time they wanted to set up a new school that had private company involvement so the council spent 2.5 the budget of a bigger grant maintained school on that school for 5 years. The private sector company involved in it also put money in. After the first two years of the school opening it was placed under special educational measures it took another 5 years for the school to come out of it.

I am not surprised.

The reason the school didn't do well was nothing to do with the money thrown at it and it's facilities but the fact that due to it's location it only attracted pupils from inner city London council estates. The other children in the immediate area either were educated in the grant maintained schools, in a different borough which had good comprehensive schools or privately.

This is not true. There are spectacular examples of successful schools in difficult areas. The key is to give good headmasters/mistresses proper control. What chance do we have if the school cannot expel bad children or sack bad teachers.

Councils have a short fall in funding for essential services and are not allowed to increase council tax so they have to make the money somewhere. It's good business sense to charge as much as possible for services that are not essential and most people won't need.

The shortfall that Councils are suffering is due to extravagant salaries, frivolous projects and gold plated pensions. By imposing excessive charges for services, they create an inefficient and distorted economy.

Your posts tend to complain how waste full councils are but when they do something where they can earn money to fund other services you moan.

Exploiting a monopoly position to extract more money from the public is disgraceful.

My council and lots of councils nearby compost food waste to reduce the amount that goes in landfill as putting waste in landfill is more expensive. Lots of people don't have gardens and even people with gardens are advised not to put food scraps in their main compost bin due to rodent problems, so if the council didn't provide this service then it would go into landfill.

Oh come on. Thats just silly.

With Green waste you have a choice of:
1. Paying for it to be collected
2. Taking it to the tip
3. Composting it yourself
My council has decided it's cheaper to pay one person minimum wage for a year to get people recycling more and composting than what they would have to pay in landfill tax in the future.

The composting discussion is a complete red herring. The real problem is that Local authorities have failed to address the problem for decades. Recycling facilities in this country are decades behind other continental countries and local authories are still landfilling materials which have been separated for landfill. It is so pathetic you could not make it up.

Local councils are not exploiting any gravy train when it comes to food safety. In fact they try and get away as doing as little as possible as Environmental Health Officers tend to be responsible for more than one area of law.

Its a gravy train and we all know it.

Environmental Health Officers only take action in the most disgusting of cases for example:
1. A decomposing human body in area used for food preparation.
2. A supermarket warned repeatedly to sort out it's food storage areas due to rodents being found in the food.
3. A person who had been banned from opening a food premise in England and Wales due to their disgusting habits trying to open another one in a different area.

At no time have not suggested that no need for some regulation. The problem is that there is too much duplication across agencies and the regulators go after the wrong targets.

You entered a debate but refused to read beingjdc or any body elses replies even though the information that beingjdc has quoted is in the public domain.

Thats not fair. I have not only read the opposing arguements but responded to them in detail.

I don't know what companies you have worked for but there are plenty of empire building individuals in private companies.

Quite true but in those cases we do have a choice on who we use.

nickmason

macaque wrote: »

Calm down, no one is denying this. If government was giving less to local councils, there would be more money for impoverished pensioners.

Not sure I understand this point. It might be that you are ignoring district councils, and just bundling "the council" into one entity.

Let's imagine a local council that isn't wasting vast amounts of money; and is running as slickly (given government-controlled obligations) as any private entity. If you're happy with a hypothetical, that's great - if you're not then look up my previous points re North Dorset District Council.

So let's take your suggestion this council gets less money from central taxation (in fact from my previous post you'll see that what it gets from central taxation is almost precisely what it has to give out in benefits - so in fact the council arguably gets no money from central taxation).

But anyhow, let's imagine they cut the revenue support grant, so that central taxation provides less money. Given that the council is as efficient as it can be, then local taxation would have to go up.

Your example was that "government was giving less to councils" - so to be far, then we need to consider whether the tax savings for individuals brought about by the reduction in central taxation would offset the increase in council tax. For some people, it might; but I suggest that pensioners are unlikely to be in that category; they tend to feel council tax harder than most.

Generali

Old_Slaphead wrote: »

Initial funding is employee 5-8% and employer 15-20%.

There's no evidence to suggest that these schemes are any better funded than most private final salary schemes (ok, the very few that are still in existance) there is still fund management underperformance but the taxpayer is obliged to make up the shortfall.

So, 2 lots of subsidy - still at least LA staff pay something unlike some other public sector schemes.

The law is clear on LA pension schemes and AIUI it means that there should be no deficit year-on-year as defined by the actuary.

LA employees get a pension as part of their compensation. That it's properly funded is wholly correct IMO. The problem lies with the Civil Service and state pension schemes which are entirely unfunded and the liabilities not accounted for. They were unlikely ever to be paid. The bank bailout now means (IMO) that they will certainly never be paid in their current form.

macaque_2

nickmason wrote: »

Not sure I understand this point. It might be that you are ignoring district councils, and just bundling "the council" into one entity.

Let's imagine a local council that isn't wasting vast amounts of money; and is running as slickly (given government-controlled obligations) as any private entity. If you're happy with a hypothetical, that's great - if you're not then look up my previous points re North Dorset District Council.

So let's take your suggestion this council gets less money from central taxation (in fact from my previous post you'll see that what it gets from central taxation is almost precisely what it has to give out in benefits - so in fact the council arguably gets no money from central taxation).

But anyhow, let's imagine they cut the revenue support grant, so that central taxation provides less money. Given that the council is as efficient as it can be, then local taxation would have to go up.

Your example was that "government was giving less to councils" - so to be far, then we need to consider whether the tax savings for individuals brought about by the reduction in central taxation would offset the increase in council tax. For some people, it might; but I suggest that pensioners are unlikely to be in that category; they tend to feel council tax harder than most.

Most of the problems that old people face would be resolved with bigger pensions. If the government cut back on armies of public servants trying to run our lives for us there would be more money for pensioners.