Quote:
Originally Posted by Acrylic-bob
Oh, I see. It's the bit that we, the public, see, as opposed to the legions of seat warming paper shufflers, chronic sick leave takers and professional training course attendees who appear to infest Scaitcliffe Towers. Well, why can't they say that rather than indulging in this ridiculous mid atlantic newspeak? Anyway, Sack the bluddy lot of em. Problem solved!
And another thing... Why do we need so many councillors? Who, if past election turnout statistics are to be believed, only actually represent about thirty percent of the electorate.
Good Grief. at this rate we will have saved the entire budget by midnight. Easy peasy, and all without claiming an allowance!
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I have to come in as defence for Hyndburn Council here and point out that there are remarkably few paper shufflers at Scaitcliffe House. In terms of manpower, from what I can see there really isn't an awful lot of room for manouevre in terms of slashing manpower.
What can be cut drastically is the number of small amounts which are frittered away on bits of nothing. It goes on all the time and to be honest it would count for a very large amount of what we're being told to save.
£1,000 here, £2,000 there....there are innumerable awards ceremonies and buffet lunches to cut for a start. Tatty bye, I can make my own butties and give myself a pat on the back without it costing thousands of pounds of public money. In terms of personal luxuries, being a councillor isn't the cushy life some people might think but those perks don't come with other jobs so I don't see any reason why we should have them.
As far as too many councillors are concerned, please don't reduce the number any more or I'm out. Looking after 3,300 homes is damned hard work and I don't fancy widening the radius of the houses I have to keep informed of events. All three of us are responsible for all 3,300 homes in Rishton and I'd find it much harder to communicate with every resident without the support of Cllr Grayson. We've both been out seeing residents this evening and posting Christmas cards with helpline numbers on plus have over a dozen other people still to see before weekend. It isn't easy but it is enjoyable, although piling more work on would push me towards standing down. I simply don't have the time, neither would many people who work so you end up left with the option of the retired or the unemployed and close the door to those who want to make a difference but can't.
The phone never stops ringing and my email inbox is always full. I'll take the fact that I am getting more and more calls as a sign that people feel they can come to me with a reasonable chance of getting a decent response but I've got other work to do as well.
At the moment you have 35 people representing over 80,000 residents in Hyndburn, I don't think that's over-egging the pudding too much.