My Council Are Hiding Spending!

suited-aces

If proper information on their spending are not released, then how can they be held to account accordingly?

oldone_2

Camewrong wrote: »

These guessing games are great fun aren't they? Immensely productive at saving us all money too.

So what are you saying? We should just let councils get on with spending money, increasing council tax each year, and reducing our services without us taking any interest of any kind. Hardly money saving.

Fortunately a growing number of us will no longer accept the arrogant attitude of those who work in the public sector, and consider everything they do should never be questioned.

Camewrong wrote: »

Let me guess, you are Gary Glitter and you really want to know everything about kids services?

I find that when people resort to this type of infantile comment, they know their arguments are very weak, and fondly imagine that hurling insults will mask their ineptitude.

Widelats

Well, i know for a fact my council were ordered to repay 10,000 to the public purse, the reason was some senior council members went and bought very expensive suits and went to strip clubs (back when nothing could be declared) and the pathetic reason they gave was "We had to buy suits like that in order to fin in with the prestigious clientèle in the establishment, and the reason 8 members went to the establishment was in the interest of the community, the establishment is in the community and we were inspecting it, undercover for ourselves...." it was more drawn out than that but thats what it implied. These people did get away with it until freedom of information came along, then they were hung out to dry and asked to resign.

geordieracer

What you should be doing too is asking your councils how much in the 'Emergency fund' they have.. Then find out how much they have to make through 'savings or cuts' and then ask them why they are not using this emergency money to cover these 'saving/cuts'

Plenty of them have millions stashed away which they could use to cover this and keep people in jobs which would help the economy grow but it seems they dont want to spend it when its exactly for this reason that they were saving it.

Widelats

geordieracer wrote: »

What you should be doing too is asking your councils how much in the 'Emergency fund' they have.. Then find out how much they have to make through 'savings or cuts' and then ask them why they are not using this emergency money to cover these 'saving/cuts'

Plenty of them have millions stashed away which they could use to cover this and keep people in jobs which would help the economy grow but it seems they dont want to spend it when its exactly for this reason that they were saving it.

I did see a enquiry the council claims a third of its expenditure allowance is saved for compensation claims, housing and disaster incidents, etc, they do not dip into it said they can't, whether true or not i don't know as every time i enquire about a repair or project they seem to have conveniently just run out of money - or so they say.

suited-aces

At a hunch, I'd say emergency funds are to cover unforeseen extra-ordinary expenditure, whereas the cuts are about savings that have to be made in day to day expenditure.

geordieracer

compensation housing and all that are ringfenced the same as stuff for education. This is a big pot of money at times when councils may find it hard to pay for what we pay them for - If they overspend on stuff.


Though it has been released in some papers im guessing the other papers didnt want to run with the story.

real1314

I'd be more interested in seeing the full accounts of multinationals that appear to pay little tax.

e.g businessmen who pay large portions of their income to wives who live in tax havens, despite the vast majority of their business being UK based.

I think taxpayers would find that sort of thing would help sort out the mess that we are in far more than identifying the supposed waste in local government.

(hmm, how many public sector workers get £100k+ pa, and how many private sector workers get that or a lot, lot more? We pay for all of that one way or another, through profit on overpriced products and services or through inappropriately low taxation)

boozercruiser

Camewrong wrote: »

Wrong and wrong.

Let me guess, you are Gary Glitter and you really want to know everything about kids services? These guessing games are great fun aren't they? Immensely productive at saving us all money too.

I don't know....I try to start hopefully an intellegent discussion in essence about how some councils (My Powys County Council included) are obviously trying to hide how they spend Council Taxpayers money.

Eric Pickles instructed them to publish all spending in any given month over £500. My Council have chosen not to do that even though this seems a reasonable request to me.

And I want and need to know this information so I can bring this spending into question if need be.

Then you have people who chip in with stupid remarks about the likes of cretin Gary Glitter, which is uncalled for.

The only thing about posting on Forums is that there are some really nasty people about who just want to put down anyone and anything just for the sake of it.:mad:

But then...this is the world we live in now I suppose.:(

boozercruiser

Below is part of my appeal.....Plus an answer I have just recieved that it is being looked at.

Thank goodness for the Freedom Of Information Act....thats what I say.

19 April 2011
Dear Powys Council,

You have provided me with an answer to my F.O.I. request which does
not show hardly any degree of ease of transparancy my request
requires. You have supplied the information in the form of an ISO
file which is hard to open when most authorities divulge as either
CSV or PDF files which are easier to open.
My main complaint though is that you have seen fit to redact each
and every detail of suppliers paid this money. I object to this
absolutely as it owes nothing to the transparancy my request
requires.

With respect, they way that you have presented this information
would not allow a council tax payer to see if the council where
operating a policy of fair and open competition by following
transparent and auditable procedures in all tendering and
contracting activity.

This is what I am asking the internal review to support.

To the best of my knowledge other authorities have not chosen to
redact as Powys Council have chosen.

FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT 2000

I regret that you have expressed dissatisfaction in the information
provided in response to your request and I acknowledge receipt of your
official complaint received on 20th April 2011.

This matter has been referred to the Chief Information Officer for review.

Your complaint will be considered and you will receive a response within
20 working days as defined by the Council's Freedom of Information
Complaints Policy. In some circumstances we may be unable to achieve this
deadline. If this is likely you will be informed and given a revised
time-scale at the earliest opportunity.

Should you need to discuss this further please contact the officer dealing
with your complaint.