Re: Audit Commission
 

Yes I saw this on Friday...I can't understand why was not splashed all over the Tory press ;).
This smacks of the same old rubbish about creating a "leaner" but better service.

Re: Audit Commission
 

Mancie, we have been over this so many times.......we cannot have what cannot be paid for.

I suppose if the government slapped a 'War Tax' on everything to fund the services you would be bleating about that too.

If you want something...then it has to be paid for....end of.

Re: Audit Commission
 

I take it you "approve" of these cuts Margaret?... I'm not totally stupid.. I know we can't have everything, but if we make massive cuts in our defence.. we could end up with nothing.. not now but in say 20yrs... i think this is a bad policy for the future.. very bad.

Re: Audit Commission
 

You obviously have not read my post number 14.
And nowhere did I call you 'stupid'......you will find that through all my posts I try not to insult people.

The theatre of war has changed dramatically over the decades.......there are far more people not dressed in uniforms trying to kill and maim us.

I do not know what the answer is, or the way forward.....I am also pretty sure that the people who are announcing the cuts in spending will take advice from people who are not politically linked to their organisation....people who have the knowledge to make the savings in a sensible and just way.

Perhaps if the previous incumbents had not been so flash with the cash then we would not be having this conversation....but I don't reckon you will wear that one.

Re: Audit Commission
 

you have not insulted me..that's my department.. it's more like the constant excuses made for this government, along with the lectures on how we must destroy any future for this country because of big bad Gordon Brown.
You are pretty sure that these cuts are made with "sound advice" from experts?... who are these people?.. certainly not the people that actually defend this country.. I've yet to hear of any General or forces Commander recommending cuts!

Re: Audit Commission
 

I remember the Audit Commission coming to Hyndburn. They were put up in the Dunkenhalgh and given champagne and fine food.

My own experiences of their two visits was of total incompetence. In giving the Council an excellent rating they did not look at anything that needed looking at but enjoyed guided tours to parts of Hyndburn the Council wanted them to see.

On this visit they failed to interview the opposition which is appalling, too busy living the high life at the tax payers expense. The Audit Commission in my view should have started with the opposition.

ON a second occasion they came here over the Coach House where months later the Council finally admitted several errors (though not all). Only months previous, the Audit Commission looked into the complaints and could find no wrong.

From these two personal experiences I have to say Eric Pickles is right. The Audit Commission set up in 1986 by Maggie, was ostensibly to monitor Labour Councils but has become ineffective.

Hopefully Hyndburn Council will be embarrassed by the Audit Commission's 'excellence' marque they have put on everything and remove them.

Re: Audit Commission
 

Nowhere have I made excuses for this government....remember I didn't vote for any of them(as you are fond of reminding me).
I could not choose a party that I felt was up to the job......the party that are in power are there because the general population felt that the Labour party had let them down.

I haven't, as far as I am aware, lectured anyone either.......the only thing I have done is recognised that it is going to take some very stringent measures to get this country back on an even fiscal course.

As for the Experts.....well surely Mancie you do not think that the government ministers make the decisions as to exactly what cuts will go ahead......they haven't got the expertise to do that. They rely on professionally qualified and impartial advisors.....this does not of course mean the Generals or the Forces Cammanders because they are not impartial are they?

Re: Audit Commission
 

Graham is right on this. The Audit Commission is bang on useless, whose activity has simply been to visit each council in the land and then tick alot of boxes, taking no account of local circumstances and all at great expense to the tax payer.

It is not to be confused with the National Audit Office, which is the armed bean-counting wing of Parliament and as such reports directly to them and not to the government. As such, it displays a combination of neutrality and imagination in rooting out public waste and stupidity. As far as I now understand, the role of the audit commission is now to be transferred to the NAO and not to any private organisation.

Re: Audit Commission
 

Tealeaf, I bet that bit of news will have some Councils quaking in their boots.

Re: Audit Commission
 

Are you real?.. seems you would take the advice on defence from some set up commision rather than the real experts, I mean those that actually defend this country?

Re: Audit Commission
 

I certainly do not recall the audit commission picking up on this:

Councils pay for prostitutes for the disabled - Telegraph

Personally, I find this very sad; is this yet another British industry in decline? Why do we have to send our people out to Holland for this? Aren't our girls good enough?

Re: Audit Commission
 

It seems we all have read the same article, This government has stated that there will be no cuts to front line services for our troops, the cuts will come in the glut of useless civil servants clogging the system wasting billions of pounds every year, incidentally most of which were introduced by your buddies over the last thirteen years, we can do without pen pushers we can't do without our front-line troops. When the country is in financial meltdown do to 13 years of total incompetence, and money being in very short supply, when you have 100,000 front line troops and 85,000 civil servants its not hard for even you to realise that there has to be cuts and civil some servants will have to go, and as you keep saying Blame Gordon Brown

Re: Audit Commission
 

While they might seem to be the real experts Mancie, do you think that they are not biased. I think that when a government takes advice, it has to be seen to be from some impartial source.

Because a soldier defends this country does not mean that he knows where best to apply defence cuts, any more than a GP can run the NHS, it would be asking them something neither is trained to do.......would you ask the barber if he thought you needed a haircut????

Re: Audit Commission
 

and Mancie, the last government committed to spending 37 billion pounds on the forces without giving any thought to where the money was coming from.

Re: Audit Commission
 

The spin coming out of the Coalition about 'Labour this' and 'Labour that' is just the shotgun start to the next election.

Already Michael 'Grovelling' Gove has had to apologise to the House of Commons for saying BSF was unfunded after Treasury officials confirmed it was. The facts did not stop him making such arrogant, ill-founded claims in the preceding days in a an attempt to cosy up to the message of lambasting Labour's unfunded promises.

Liam Fox is doing the same, as all his colleagues are and it is bare faced cheek from him when he said we were not spending enough on defence in the run up.