Spending cuts

[david51058]

I cannot belive that local councils up and down the land cannot find savings without cutting front line services. With all the pointless rubbish they spend money on such as climate change, diversity, smoking cessation for example. They choose instead to close libraries, stop help for the disabled or for the old.
It's all about trying to cause maximum embarrassment for the government, making the vunerable suffer so they can point the finger at the government and say "look how wicked they are". It's disgusting.

[squarebear]

I assume they will save a lot more by closing a library complete with librarians wages and moving the person who does the nonsense job into a more productive role.

[youngmafbog]

Many are using this as an excuse for their own agenda and not necessarily a political one.
Does anyone know the actual facts on the political persuasions of those councils most guilty of this ?

[jake-the-peg]

Or perhaps - just perhaps there is the tiny glimmer of a possibility that you've been totally mislead by the media and your local council doesn't after all spend 80% of it's budget on diversity officers and recycling consultants.

Do you think there's any chance that most of their money just might go on schools and road maintenance and the like.

Of course that would mean that you'd swallowed a media yarn hook line and sinker so it's probably safer just to assume that you're right and that it's all a conspiracy!

You might like to ponder why they're switching off speed cameras to save money too seeing as they are "obviously" just money raising devices.

Probably another conspiracy to embaress the Government eh?

[rov1100]

Unfortunately the area that needs to be taken seriously are the big fat pensions that have to come out of the council tax. Why can't they fund their own?

http://www.telegraph....sions-black-hole.html

[jake-the-peg]

Lets take Liverpool council as an example - their annual budget is about £600 million or so

Exactly how many Climate change diversity specialists do you think you need to find and sack to pay for a 10% cut in that?

Liverpool city council is having to loose 1,500 workers - do you think there are 1,500 gay workshop co-ordinators they can lose instead?

Sorry you've been sold a pup and now that reality is biting you're constructing a conspiracy rather than face the conclusion that all that tabloid bilge you bought into was nonsense

Rov has a good point if emotively put - public sector pensions are a big issue - but we all know you don't get rich working in the public sector a good pension provision was part of the reason people were willing to take jobs well under the going rate and stick at them for years.

It was part of their package - you can't just turn to them now and say " sorry things have changed no pension now" any more than your employer can turn to you at the end of the month and say sorry we're only going to pay you for 3 months out of the last 4 you worked because we're a bit brassic now!

However you can stop making the problem worse - you can enforce private pensions on new public sector jobs - of course that will make public jobs much less attractive and you'll get poorer people taking them on.

That's poorer teachers, poorer policemen, nurses, firemen not to mention poorer quality applicants for running all these services too! ,

[bushbaby_de]

Jake-the-peg I wish there were more people like you. I am so fed up of people bashing the Councils I have stopped trying to put them straight.

[rov1100]

bushbaby you obviously do not pay council tax yourself, or maybe you get a rebate.
Council tax employees should be treated the same way as others in the society, There are many lower paid jobs out there and they have to provide for themselves.

[bushbaby_de]

My opinion differs from yours so I must be a sponger or a freeloader? Charming attitude... but it explains your incredibly myopic comments in the original post.

[bushbaby_de]

Beg pardon, I see you are not the original poster, but I find it shocking all the same that these narrow viewpoints prevail.

[PipinHull]

Jake - gay workshop co-ordinators! Made me laugh.

[Coldicote]

I read that Manchester Council, not content with closing libraries and making other savings, have the bizarre notion of closing public toilets. Hardly a frontline service but but I wonder what they think will happen!

[bushbaby_de]

Yeah I read that some of the Council's are trying to persuade local shops and restuarants to open their toilets to the public so the Council doesn't have to maintain the oft-vandalised public toilets - I can just imagine M&S welcoming in the local drunks LOL

[weecalf]

Cant figure it .Money was borrowed .Where is it now ? We according to the lib /cons borrowed billions has it left the country.Is money taken out of the ecomony to strenghten it .Could anyone explain what has happened .

[squarebear]

The banks blew it all away. Everyone else must now pay for their mistakes.

[bushbaby_de]

Weecalf - too many banks offered loans far too big to people who couldn't really afford it. Lots of banks couldn't recover the loans they made so lost money and needed bailing out by the government. Banks stopped lending so much so people found it very hard to get loans or mortgages, so less money circulated back into the economy. Big fat recession. The whole problem was that the money never really existed in the first place.

[david51058]

Public spending is an overhead, it doesn't create wealth for the country and just like in business, overheads need to be cut when times are hard. It's not rocket science. Councils just need to prioritise.

[Hopkirk]

Every year when I get my council tax bill, they send me an expensive looking glossy booklet about how they spend the money.

Like most people, I put it straight in the recycling bin.

[sandyRoe]

They do need to prioritise. What need is there for services like meals on wheels, day centres for the elderly, libraries, or swimming pools?

[weecalf]

Thanks for explaining that .Now the paying back of the money .How is it done .Do our people go round to their people and give them money. I used to think it was vaults of gold and when a loan was given a man with a wheel barrow actualy took gold from one vault and took it to anothers vault .