Why Your Council Tax is So High

Generali

via PrivateAye at the fool.co.uk website (link)

I came across this by accident. It refers to council FRIDGE MAGNETS and involves:
• Buying the fridge magnets for 47p each instead of stickers at 5p each, to remind people to re-cycle
• Distributing them
• Re-cycling officers returning to the area to distribute a questionaire
• Free post envelopes to return the questionnaire
• Preparation of a 15 page document which contained the following gems of information:
o Reported that 8 out of 10 recipients remembered getting their fridge magnet the previous week
o All ethnic backgrounds had the same level of understanding of the fridge magnet
o respondents with a C1-2/D social grade found the magnets to be of more use to them than those from an A/B background.
o 78% of respondents lived in a 2 person household
o 97% of respondents were white whereas only 96.37% of residents are white.
o One quarter fridge magnet recipients refused to provide details about their household income
o Residents from households with a higher social grading (AB) found the magnet less useful that those from lower social grades (C2D).
o 3% of respondents were upper-middle class
o There was no correlation between fridge magnet usefulness and age of respondents, or size of household
o 18 assorted graphs, tables, pie charts etc, pictorially displaying useless information like what 97% (white) population and 3% (black) population would look like if they were a pie. (sorry I could not re-produce this here).
• A committee of a dozen or so, (including what appears to be a foreign observer), meeting to review the results of the survey & decide whether to continue spending council tax payers’ money on fridge magnets @940% the cost per unit for a sticker containing the same information.

http://www.west-norfolk.gov.uk/pdf/300610agenda.pdf
http://www.west-norfolk.gov.uk/pdf/REmins300610.pdf

Remember, every word and statistic gathered by the council is paid for by you. For example, how much council tax would you like to pay to compare the racial breakdown of the population at large vs those that responded to a questionnaire regarding what you think about some marketing regarding recycling?

ILW

It truly is a parallel world out there in local government.

CLAPTON

but one also needs to consider

-is recycling worthwhile?
-does recycling save any money
-was the strategy effective
-were there better / cheaper / more effective strategies
-surely we need evidence based decision making

ILW

CLAPTON wrote: »

but one also needs to consider

-is recycling worthwhile?
-does recycling save any money
-was the strategy effective
-were there better / cheaper / more effective strategies
-surely we need evidence based decision making

Bet you work in the public sector.

Generali

CLAPTON wrote: »

but one also needs to consider

-is recycling worthwhile?
-does recycling save any money
-was the strategy effective
-were there better / cheaper / more effective strategies
-surely we need evidence based decision making

Is this a good way to spend your money?

twirlypinky

Interesting considering my local council don't bother to empty our recycling bin.

twirlypinky

Recycling is a good way to save money actually, think about it. Even if you take the environmental theory away, reusing things rather than buying new ones is just good sense.

I work in the public sector and in our department we re use old reports as scrap paper and recycle as much as we can. Also, the council collect our recycling bins for free. Every other bin is charged by the weight depending on the type of waste.

So yes, it is a cost saving.

vivatifosi

Some more where that one came from:
Council contractors removing "dangerous" conkers from trees:
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23370237-killjoy-officials-accused-of-nanny-state-madness-as-they-take-childrens-conkers.do

Then there's the council that's hired a plane with thermal imaging equipment to snoop on buildings that it doesn't think are properly insulated:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1164091/Council-uses-spy-plane-thermal-imaging-camera-snoop-homes-wasting-energy.html

Or the council that tried to spend taxpayer's money on repairing roads that hadn't been adopted and were therefore privately owned:
http://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/news/burnley/4187167.Council__wasting____26_000_repairing_unadopted_Burnley_road/

Then there's the council that spent three times a worker's salary paying from them to commute from one end of the country to another:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1166676/Council-chief-commutes-365-miles-week-costs-taxpayers-200-000-year.html

Or maybe the council that accidentally appointed two firms to put road signs up, meaning that new ones were installed, then five hours later new ones were installed again:
http://www.thisislocallondon.co.uk/whereilive/southeast/lewisham/4246193.BLACKHEATH__Council_accused_of_wasting_money_on_street_signs/

And my personal favourite: the council that incurred the wrath of its library workers by trying to rename librarians "audience development officers":
http://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/scotsol/homepage/news/article2124297.ece

I work in local government and for the most part we spend our time trying to do a good job on limited resources, so when I hear about instances like this (which thankfully don't involve the authority for which I work) I get very angry. They deserve to be brought to account for items like this because undertaking such unrequired spending may now involve cuts in more deserving services elsewhere.

ILW

twirlypinky wrote: »

Recycling is a good way to save money actually, think about it. Even if you take the environmental theory away, reusing things rather than buying new ones is just good sense.

.

Not if it costs more to get things into a useable condition than to buy new ones. eg plastic bags.

ILW

vivatifosi wrote: »

Some more where that one came from:
Council paying private contractor to remove dangerous conkers from trees:
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23370237-killjoy-officials-accused-of-nanny-state-madness-as-they-take-childrens-conkers.do

Then there's the council that's hired a plane with thermal imaging equipment to snoop on buildings that it doesn't think are properly insulated:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1164091/Council-uses-spy-plane-thermal-imaging-camera-snoop-homes-wasting-energy.html

Or the council that tried to spend taxpayer's money on repairing roads that hadn't been adopted and were therefore privately owned:
http://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/news/burnley/4187167.Council__wasting____26_000_repairing_unadopted_Burnley_road/

Then there's the council that spent three times a worker's salary paying from them to commute from one end of the country to another:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1166676/Council-chief-commutes-365-miles-week-costs-taxpayers-200-000-year.html

Or maybe the council that accidentally appointed two firms to put road signs up, meaning that new ones were installed, then five hours later new ones were installed again:
http://www.thisislocallondon.co.uk/whereilive/southeast/lewisham/4246193.BLACKHEATH__Council_accused_of_wasting_money_on_street_signs/

And my personal favourite: the council that incurred the wrath of its library workers by trying to rename librarians "audience development officers":
http://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/scotsol/homepage/news/article2124297.ece

I work in local government and for the most part we spend our time trying to do a good job on limited resources, so when I hear about instances like this (which thankfully don't involve the authority for which I work) I get very angry. They deserve to be brought to account for items like this because undertaking such unrequired spending may now involve cuts in more deserving services elsewhere.

Problem is that nobody who made the rdiculous decision ever gets sacked. The thought of having to justify bad decisions does actually improve outcomes.

kabayiri

I bet a few of us here could give examples of PC gone mad money spending exhibited by both local and central government.

Just remember, if you give someone a job title and career as a 'recycling efficiency consultant' you can't then complain later when they bombard your workplace with all sorts of recycling related distractions.