What would you Cut in your Council?

bendix

lostinrates wrote: »

On this note, a local town has paid for public loos, staffed clean...spanking clean, no groups of teens loitering inside. TBH, a well staffed wellmaintained community facility is easily worth 50p a time to me.

I'm going to start a Privatise Peeing Campaign

System

I wouldn't bother telling them what to cut, I'd just cut council tax by a mandatory 50% and let them sort it out for themselves. It could be the last, and only, useful thing most "chief executives" ever did in their lives.

bendix

isn't that actually what's happening Clifford?

Quite right too.

Cut subsidies to local government and cut council tax - then let them make the decisions themselves.

PasturesNew

I agree with a lot of the first part, especially joined up thinking/sharing offices etc.

Pennywise wrote: »

Re public toilets - again, easy solution would be to make existing toilets in public buildings open to all - i.e. libraries, town halls, council offices, leisure centres, schools, hospitals, GP surgeries etc.

Re this lot though, in my town:
Library - no loo
Town hall - not a hall, no loo
Council offices - no loo
Leisure centres - one about 2 miles from the middle of town and up a hill
Schools - none in the centre
Hospitals - one small out of the way ward of some sort, and a sort of A&E service that's more deciding whether you need to go to the proper hospital 20 miles away, never seen a loo there.
GP surgeries, I guess they have loos, but again they're not in the town

No big shops, no shops with public loos. That just leaves pubs.

PasturesNew

ILW wrote: »

Pubs are open all day now and thety all have loos.

They do. Now all you have to do is get past the door security ... and pass the dress code. I was refused entry a few years back for trying to enter a pub in the daytime wearing shorts. They were very decent shorts and it was summer and this is a seaside/beach town. Heck, wearing shorts is over-dressed here! And it was a right p0xy pub that's quite rough... so wasn't even a decent place.

ILW

zappahey wrote: »

Did you miss the announcement about the new SI units of measurement?

Everything has to be measured in terms of football pitches, olympic swimming pools, double decker buses or Wales (Belgium if we're talking about international measurements).

I guess we're all too thick to understand scale for ourselves.

You missed out that salaries are all a ratio to what the PM earns.

jimibaboza

I would not have the foggiest idea of what to cut. But I do believe that the people working for councils should be made accountable for the money they are spending. There is too much of a "why not, it is not my money" culture in the public sector. We would very quickly see a change if council workers were treated more like the private sector with regards to money.

I am not too sure about this value for money thing either.

Mrs_Arcanum

Cut - The number of hours staff waste justifying their existence every year, particularly prior to budget setting times.

Also manage contracts properly & make sure contractors are pinned down to time/cost with penalty clauses.

Keep - Libraries.

ali-t

ILW wrote: »

How is that figure made up, I find it very difficult to believe unless the council involved really are incredibly inefficient.

I can't double quote but this is in response to your question about how it can cost £4-7K per week to keep a young person in residential care.

It isn't as simple as keeping them in a house with a couple of staff. Staff ratios are very high and are to my knowledge a minimum of 1:2 but with very damaged children or those who are a danger to themselves it could be 2:1. This is qualified staff who may be earning up to £25K a year and a minimum of 3 shifts a day are required.

There are often shortages of beds too so spaces paid for in other local authority areas can cost even more. That is before the private sector is taken into account where prices can be even higher.

I can't find anything in print to confirm the prices but have a link to an irish article I found online http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/kfmhsnsnmhql/rss2/

Mr_Matey

Traffic Wardens.