Council is broke

vivatifosi

Generali wrote: »

The obvious thing I guess is no pay rises for a few years to let inflation take care of the problem.

A lot of councils have been doing this for several years already. It has certainly been my experience. As with every council, if they haven't been doing this when they are in a mess, my question would be why not?

Generali wrote: »

I don't think Councils can take on debts and their pensions are meant to be fully funded. I don't think there's a huge quantity of liabilities hiding away somewhere unless the actuaries have got it wrong.

There's a new LGPS coming in April 2014. Career Av rather than final salary and with retirement age rising. I don't know enough about it to know whether it is coming in everywhere. I've been in a career av scheme since I was eligible to join, which is several years now (fs had already been closed to new members) but I know other councils that have still been advertising jobs with fs pensions during this time. They are not all acting the same way.

Generali wrote: »

The problem with local councils IME is that they're simply not very efficient: they don't do enough with the money they get.

Sorry Gen, I think that's a bit unfair. I think there are some really inefficient councils - the article on Wolverhampton more than hints at this - but there are also some well run ones. Please don't tar them all with the same brush.

michaels

Generali wrote: »

I don't think Councils can take on debts and their pensions are meant to be fully funded. I don't think there's a huge quantity of liabilities hiding away somewhere unless the actuaries have got it wrong.

The problem with local councils IME is that they're simply not very efficient: they don't do enough with the money they get.

Hopefully this is true although given the unexpected increases in life expectancy it would seem surprising if the final salary pensions were all 'fully funded'....

Generali

vivatifosi wrote: »

Sorry Gen, I think that's a bit unfair. I think there are some really inefficient councils - the article on Wolverhampton more than hints at this - but there are also some well run ones. Please don't tar them all with the same brush.

Quite possibly and TBH, the Corporation of London was excellent so I am tarring them all with the Lambeth & Harringey brushes.

michaels

Slightly OT but there was a recent upset in a London borough (Brent?) that was outsourcing a lt of its council services to a call centre elsewhere in the UK - for the council it obviously resulted in savings but their was discussion about whether for the borough as a whole it was value for money as it resulted in tax being collected in the borough paying slaries of people who lived far away whereas with local proviosn of the servies the money returned to the local economy. I'm not sure how where the overall balance of such an arrangement for the borough itself stands - any thoughts?

Generali

michaels wrote: »

Slightly OT but there was a recent upset in a London borough (Brent?) that was outsourcing a lt of its council services to a call centre elsewhere in the UK - for the council it obviously resulted in savings but their was discussion about whether for the borough as a whole it was value for money as it resulted in tax being collected in the borough paying slaries of people who lived far away whereas with local proviosn of the servies the money returned to the local economy. I'm not sure how where the overall balance of such an arrangement for the borough itself stands - any thoughts?

I reckon the council should be trying to provide the best service at the lowest cost: providing value for money.

My guess is that outsourcing to a large call centre firm provides a lower cost outcome than providing services themselves. Call centres are pretty efficient at handling large volumes of calls, a skill that it seems unlikely for a council to have as it's pretty specialised.

michaels

Generali wrote: »

I reckon the council should be trying to provide the best service at the lowest cost: providing value for money.

My guess is that outsourcing to a large call centre firm provides a lower cost outcome than providing services themselves. Call centres are pretty efficient at handling large volumes of calls, a skill that it seems unlikely for a council to have as it's pretty specialised.

That is of course true but if the outsourced call centre is in Glasgow whereas if the council runs the services it employs people in Brent who then buy coffess at Costa in Brent etc does Brent (rather than the UK economy as a whole) benefit from the outsourcing?

seven-day-weekend

Thank you all for your informative and interesting comments.

I live in Wolverhampton, in fact I used to work for the City Council and am due to draw my Pension from there later this year:eek:

The city centre is terrible. There are empty shops, derelict buildings, schemes that are promised don't come to pass because there is not enough private investment. I think the last new build within the ring road was our church building which took over a derelict Goodyear tyre depot.

http://www.expressandstar.com/news/2011/02/02/new-church-approved-for-chapel-ash-site/

We do however have the largest Poundland in the country.:)

Jaguar/Landrover have relocated to the outskirts of the town, but it is Tory South Staffs Council (which adjoins Wolves) that have mainly engineered this.

I think the Council has been mismanaged for years under Labour control. I worked for it during the Tony Blair years (1996-2004) and of course the Labour Government kept it topped up financially, so they have got used to that level of spending.

I fear for my city, I really do. Traditional industry has disappeared. I see it sinking into decline and don't know what to do.

CKhalvashi

michaels wrote: »

Slightly OT but there was a recent upset in a London borough (Brent?) that was outsourcing a lt of its council services to a call centre elsewhere in the UK - for the council it obviously resulted in savings but their was discussion about whether for the borough as a whole it was value for money as it resulted in tax being collected in the borough paying slaries of people who lived far away whereas with local proviosn of the servies the money returned to the local economy. I'm not sure how where the overall balance of such an arrangement for the borough itself stands - any thoughts?

I don't know, but the end result is that it's impossible to speak to anyone to clarify anything, without having issues.

The council for the area I live in (outside of London) is literally a 'pop in and speak to someone' arrangement, and this is generally within 10 minutes.

CK

Generali

City centres are a problem: traditionally they've been filled with shops but these days people shop on the Interweb. Given a chance, people will find new things to do with shops: making touring pop-up shops perhaps which spend a couple of weeks in a town before moving on, seasonal shops, conversion to housing or offices or whatever. Councils often stand in the way of conversion but people get their books from Amazon not the local bookstore these days.

As for industry? I believe it's making something of a comeback in the UK. Increasing labour costs in China combined with low UK interest rates and a more favourable political climate for business are combining to bring those sorts of jobs back to the UK.

Finally, there seems to be something of an entrepreneurial revival going on in the UK, probably forced on people in desperation. Lots of small companies being started up means lots of work and training further down the line.

DKLS

Doesn't surprise me, I have worked at two councils and they were both inept with an attitude of "well we aren't spending our money so what the hell"