Council is broke

Generali

michaels wrote: »

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?

It does if the people of Brent get:
1. A better service
2. Don't have productive workers being unproductive by doing jobs they're not as good at

It's like any sort of trade: stick to what you're good at and import what you're bad at. Everyone wins. It's the same whatever level you look at it from be it the pin factory or international trade. Trade is good.

The economist Riccardo worked all that out in the C19th.

Loughton_Monkey

Behind every bankrupt council [and it's always a Labour one], will lie a history of incompetence, bad management, and a degree of deliberate 'politiking'. In simple terms, any extra income will go on higher salaries for the officials, recruiting another 20 'outreach consultants' for unemployed partly deaf people with alcohol problems and learning difficulties, plus an extra £10K funding for the local lesbian street theatre group.....

Then next year when they have to cut by the same amount, they sack 12 bin men, 30 street cleaners, cease all road mending, and blame the coalition government.

The 'Derek Hatton' model is still out there. Derek Hatton himself is now a wealthy Cyprus property developer.

gazter

michaels wrote: »

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'....

The local government pension scheme is a model of public sector schemes. It is fully funded, and reviewed every three years, when a deficit is estimated the council increases its contribution. Currently my council is dumping in 18% of its wage bil into the pot.


You would be surprised just how much is/was slushing round the system. My local authority has taken its main budget down from about £20 million to £12, with not real material reduction in the expected services from the public, and it still spends £1.2 mil on a museum, £900,000 on community centres, £950,000 loss on a leisure centre and £1.3 mil a year on an interest only loan at 10% apr.

Old_Slaphead

gazter wrote: »

The local government pension scheme is a model of public sector schemes. It is fully funded, and reviewed every three years, when a deficit is estimated the council increases its contribution. Currently my council is dumping in 18% of its wage bil into the pot.

It is 'funded' not 'fully funded'

At the last round of 3 yearly evaluations the asset values equated to around 80% of estimated liabilities

michaels

gazter wrote: »

.... £1.3 mil a year on an interest only loan at 10% apr.

Really???????

BillJones

Generali wrote: »

City centres are a problem: traditionally they've been filled with shops but these days people shop on the Interweb.

Another big problem is concils discouraging people from shopping in town centres, by reducing the number of parking spaces, and ramping up charges for those that do exist.

I'm off to Oxford for a night soon, and to use the council car park near where I'm staying is £30 for the night. Just a few hours parking would be £10. If I lived in the surrounding countryside I'd be very tmpted to go to an out of town centre instead for shopping.

Old_Slaphead

Not sure about all this 'pleading poverty'. After cutting services last year, my local council (and a few others nearby) gave all staff earning below £21,500 a £250 christmas bonus.
So much for the 1% pay cap!

grizzly1911

michaels wrote: »

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?

Or the fact that someone from Brent may actually understand, appreciate and have the ability to resolve queries much more efficiently than a remote call centre operating from scripts, needing to escalate and hand off calls to achieve resolution.

The call centre route is more likely to provide access to immediately cheap staff to start with.

seven-day-weekend

BillJones wrote: »

Another big problem is concils discouraging people from shopping in town centres, by reducing the number of parking spaces, and ramping up charges for those that do exist.

I'm off to Oxford for a night soon, and to use the council car park near where I'm staying is £30 for the night. Just a few hours parking would be £10. If I lived in the surrounding countryside I'd be very tmpted to go to an out of town centre instead for shopping.

This is the case in Wolves too and in fact people who have a choice tend to shop in Merry Hill (Dudley) or Telford, depending on which side of the city they live.

The bus is expensive as well.

Booze-up and Brewery spring to mind.

grizzly1911

Wolverhampton and surrounding Black Country were a leading light during the industrial revolution and beyond.

They were heavily reliant on heavy industry and manufacturing which has been lost in the last 30/40 years. Goodyear one of the major employers (6000+ at peak)closed in the late noughties, except for a small specialist unit.

It has large tracts of relatively deprived suburbs and a high level of immigration from the 60s. It has been in slow decline for many years like many previous "dirty" industry towns.

Whilst the council, like many, may have wasted money it has/does have significant challenges too I am sure.

India's conglomerate Tata, JLR owners, will hopefully bring some new life to the town.