Quote:
Originally Posted by gynn
Yes there are certainly a lot of savings to be made in those areas, and to be fair, the savings identified in the budget report to Cabinet will go a long way towards sweeping away such meaningless work.
What concerns me in the list of savings is the assumption that additional income will be raised. It is one thing to reduce spending, but it is quite another to generate additional monies from outside the authority, especially when there will be fewer staff to carry out the work.
I refer particularly to the following:-
Additional Income from Pest Control £30,000. Yes you can increase prices, with inevitable consumer resistance, but where is this sort of extra money coming from? More rats and cockroaches, perhaps? And if its available, why has nobody been chasing it before?
Budget Re-Alignment Income - Environmental Health £40,500. What on earth is this? How does re-aligning your budgets increase the income from outside the authority?
Income from Better Waste Management £28,000. I thought the Council was already a top performer in waste management. What is it going to do that is even better?
Additional Fees from Regeneration £418,689. Aren't we in a recession? Who is going to pay the Council that sort of money for regenerating the borough in the next 12 months?
Additional Fees - Environmental Schemes £4,400. In a recession?
Accountancy Services - Increased Income £21,000. Who from? Where from?
Corporate Services Additional Income Generation £82,416. Who are they trying to kid? Corporate Services is the cradle of the bureaucratic pen pushers. No outside body would go anywhere near paying them to do anything.
If the answer given to any of the above is that it is increased charging between council departments, then that is a non answer. It is robbing Peter to pay Paul and generates zero extra income to the Council.
The list above totals well over £600,000. Councillors need to satisfy themselves that it is achievable, and achievable in the next 12 months.
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This was my beef with the publicised Overview & Scrutiny Committee meeting with Cllr Britcliffe several weeks ago. They moved the planning meeting at the last minute and as a result I was unable to attend, but the officers that they moved it for didn't attend either so what was the point?
At the meeting itself this was pointed out as the flaw in all my questions, that I couldn't be bothered going to planning meetings. When I tried to ask about these magical mystery figures these were shouted down by the chair, a man whom up until now I have had great respect for.
Scrutiny at the moment leaves a lot to be desired. I find myself saying that with a real pang of regret because I had faith in the system up until recently.
Many of the savings rely on predicted generated income, the evidence for which seems to be sorely lacking.