Fire service was bound to be cut though, whoever was in charge.

Years of massive investment in safety, tighter regulations and concentrated investment in prevention through use of fire retardant materials, smoke alarms, reduction in smoking, vehicle safety etc. have seen a constant drop in fires and callouts.

Not as much as they would have you believe, no where near.

Simple fact is/will be that if you need us you will more then likely have to wait longer, in some cases much longer and the weight of response will be heavily reduced.

I am not sure if people understand the potential perfect storm that could arrive for the North East of England – Tory victory in next election + English votes for English MPs = no requirement to fund any public sector in the North East

Dave and Gideon can gain a level of power/control that Thatcher could only dream about – think this won’t happen? But then again if you are south of Birmingham do you give a s**t (open question)

The Tories seem intent on destroying the North. Because we don’t vote for them. Sensibly. Turkeys don’t generally vote for Christmas

The aim is to cut northern metropolitan councils back to the point where they only have the funding available to empty the bins once a month, and not much else. The South East will of course remain unaffected.

Simple fact, local authorities are wasteful. The point is how they manage the cuts that they will have to make…councillors’ expenses or school crossing patrols, there’s never a shortage of people wanting to be a councillor

Simple fact, local authorities are wasteful.

Do you have any proper evidence of this.

Historical evidence?

The study I quoted before plus the annual pwc report on local authorities. Last one concluded

Our third annual survey finds that local authorities have once again successfully delivered against an ambitious programme of financial savings over the last year, without any marked reduction in the quality of frontline services.

So how do LAs manage this if there were not inefficiencies in the system? So far, so good. The challenge comes when proper austerity kicks in. There is little doubt that in the future, the relationship between local authorities and those they serve will need to change. Expectations have to change first, but politicians are scared to tell it as it is. On top of that, the national audit office (while supporting the above) concludes that govs have little actual understanding of the impact of cuts. Hit and hope – well there’s a surprise from govs!

Historical evidence is historical.
What you present could just show that the effects kc the cuts havent kicked in yet as investment in future provision has been cut.
I would like to see direct evidence of wastefulness which is shown to be worse than a private company doing a similar thing at a similar scale. More rhetoric is not helpful.

Part of the problem is that for years, councils have been sitting on the gravy train of unending government funding rolling in and they’ve made no effort to maximise any alternative revenue streams, in fact they’ve cut back on things like parking fines because it’s “unpopular”.

So when the plug is suddenly pulled on the cash flow, they’re a bit ****. Doesn’t help that town halls are usually the big old historic buildings that look lovely but are astronomically expensive to heat and maintain. Various other factors such as general wastefulness, huge salaries for top council executives, old final salary pension schemes and it’s suddenly all catching up with them.

I don’t think blaming government cuts is the full story at all, its just made an already difficult situation very critical. That said, councils should have seen this coming from about 2009 onwards…

evidence is historical

FTFY….by definition.

LAs in fact should be congratulated for managing such a stark reduction in their funding and for not letting this affect services so far.

But, now is time for some honesty from their central gov masters. Future cuts will be even more severe and the nature of service provision will have to change significantly. The planning for this is pretty poor so far.

without any marked reduction in the quality of frontline services.how do LAs manage this if there were not inefficiencies in the system?

they cut other services where they dont have a statutory duty to deliver Unless of course you wish to argue say the Connexions service [ no longer in existence], youth clubs , youth workers, libraries and other non statutory services have been slashed. I am not sure many folk would call these service inefficiencies. They also do much less in other areas. Again I am not sure this can be called inefficiency.

FWIW the following sentence after your “supportive quote” , to make a paragraph is

However, there is a significant drop in confidence about being able to continue to protect the frontline and nervousness about the 2013 Spending Review and the impact of welfare reform. With significant challenges still ahead, there must be no let-up for local government transformation.

http://www.pwc.co.uk/government-public-sector/local-government/financial-pressures-and-transformation.jhtml

If you follow the report link from that page to here
http://www.pwc.co.uk/government-public-sector/local-government/publications/the-local-state-we-are-in.jhtml
Note how i include links rather than take quotes out of context and omit the bit that does not support my argument.

Beyond 2013/14, confidence in meeting savings targets falls with 57% of Chief Executives saying 2015/16 will be the toughest year to come.

Nine out of ten Chief Executives and Leaders now believe that some local authorities will get into serious financial crisis or fail to deliver the essential services that residents require within the next three years.

THM will of course ignore this as he considers my presentation of facts from his links to be trolling.

In terms of cuts IMHO there is no excess fat [ non essential services] left to cut and we have reached the point where some council will struggle to deliver statutory obligations never mind things like libraries. This is what they think will likely happen as well.

EDIT: most of that is redundant and you seem to have moved to say basically what the report said anyway

Future cuts will be even more severe and the nature of service provision will have to change significantly. The planning for this is pretty poor so far.

You are correct about this but, IMHO, its cowardice on the part of elected MPs to drive through the cuts by forcing local councillors and Chief executives to make the hard decisions, It is their job and they should do it and be held to account for it. We should also be having a national debate about what we want provided locally and how.
I think we will end up with things like libraries being voluntarily run or possible even subscription based and everything else being just the statutory duty. If you have youth club volunteers do it, playground maintenance being minimal etc grass cut less often etc. I think to go on about wastefulness in the public sector is just to say you are Tory tbh.[ quite possibly showing my own bias there]
Anyway off out now and away for the solstice
Hope you all enjoy the festive season and you and your gods be they Druidic. Abrahamic or alcoholic smile on you at this time

Welcome to The Technetronic Era …

Yawn. The real answer is that (1) we don’t know as much as we should and, as stated several times before, the outlook is much more severe. The NAO keeps it simple, the recent period which has been marked by a fall in unit costs (efficiency) is coming to an end. The next stage involves a more radical rethink of how services are delivered.

PWC has interesting observations on this too as indicated earlier.

AA, it’s a good question. How many companies would have coped with a 28% decrease in real funding without a deterioration in service levels? Hence the comment on congratulating. Of course, the counter argument is if it was possible, why did it take a crisis to trigger such efficiencies – but that’s a general observation!

EDIT: most of that is redundant and you seem to have moved to say basically what the report said anyway

A self pawn, brilliant. 😉

Do you have any proper evidence of this.

The most cursory of google searches will provide you with current, empirical evidence of the millions and millions of pounds wasted by Edinburgh Council. From criminally overpriced vanity projects (Edinburgh Tram Project) to the obscene sums spent attempting to justify and subsequently defend the indefensible (Statutory Notice Scheme) to the decision to outsource that legal defense (by the council bigwig who used to work there) instead of using their own award-winning legal team. The waste is there for all to see.

I don’t for a minute think Edinburgh Council are alone in their blasé attitude to what are considered appropriate uses for public funds.

And yet, ENVE rims and carbon Santa Cruzs’ are still selling.

AA, it’s a good question. How many companies would have coped with a 28% decrease in real funding without a deterioration in service levels? Hence the comment on congratulating. Of course, the counter argument is if it was possible, why did it take a crisis to trigger such efficiencies – but that’s a general observation!

Massive cuts to the arts and libraries are just two examples of real cuts to services. To suggest the cuts to funding have not led to cuts in services is just wrong and a piece of slight of hand worthy of a minister.

Do you have any proper evidence of this.

My LA took a junction that averaged 1 reported injury collision every year for 10 years and changed it

Over the next year 11 injury collisions were reported

They changed it back and the collision rate dropped to previously reported levels (over a much shorter period, but the trend is certainly there)

They don’t say how much this pointless exercise cost in full to the LA, police, ambulance, local business, etc.
And that’s just one junction

Fine complain to the independent bodies who are responsible for the conclusions.

And don’t forget, when this gets unnecessarily political, my earlier post on who have been hit hardest on the selective cuts so far. Bloody Tories, cutting the services to the better off!!! B***tards. The next thing we will see is income inequality narrowing, oh wait a minute.

Of course as we ring fence the most efficient/inefficient consumer of funding (you decide) other areas get hit. Hence the nonsense that is the current ring fencing strategy. At least that gives UKIP something to exagerate.

So there’s less money to spend on more people, that still doesn’t expalin why on one hand the reductions aren’t equal or on the other provide confidence local authorities operate efficiently.

On general wastefulness and budgets, I have just watched a private sector entity award a large contract on v high fees simply because they wanted to spend all the 2014 budget. So much for the profit-maximisation motive!!! Spend the bloody budget or it will be cut next year, amazing!

My point THM is that those reports no doubt had caveats at the start about the types of services looked at. The 28% hasnt all been absorbed real losses have taken place already, i expect future investment has dried up so either those reports are wrong, which I doubt or you have interpreted them wrong by quoting things out of context.

Read them and then complain to the relevant bodies. If the National Audit Office isn’t doing it’s job effectively or efficiently remember it’s your money they are spending! Also read the Glasgow/HW study that I quoted first about where the impact has hit hardest.

Re, the out of context bit, even “ykw” couldn’t sustain that one!!!

TBF, the NAO did comment on difficulties in measurement and management. But guess what happens to things that you can’t measure or manage?

Massive cuts to the arts and libraries are just two examples of real cuts to services. To suggest the cuts to funding have not led to cuts in services is just wrong and a piece of slight of hand worthy of a minister.

Putting libraries aside for one moment, do we reallt think that it is the role of local authorities to subsidise ballet and theatre?

Sure, it’s a lovely thing to have, but so is the cinema, and I don’t think for one second that council tax should be contributing towards my ticket at the local multiplex – nor for that manner am I enamoured by the council spending money on sculptures etc. (I have less of a problem with lottery funding for artwork as Nobody is forced to pay towards it)

Finally of course, the council is free to fund these projects, they can up the council tax and spend as much as they like in fact, they just need to hold a local referendum on the issue, which means that it’s actually the democratic will of the people to pay for and provide these things… I think it says a lot that not a single council has yet held one.

The problem with lottery funding is that it is highly regressive form of taxation. Fooling people who don’t know better, is pretty poor really. But at least they have a choice in the matter. Swings and roundabouts.

Not as regressive as using poor people’s taxes to subsidise middle class people’s trip to the ballet…

While local authorities have tried to protect service users, there is emerging evidence that funding reductions have led to a fall in service volumes. Local authorities have tried to protect spending on core areas such as adult social care and children’s social care, and to make savings through efficiencies rather than reducing services. …..However, a reduction in the volume of activity does not necessarily imply a worsening in the quality of provision or outcomes for service users

From the national audit office. Of course, they too could be simply making all the evidence up or taking out of context!! 😉

The thing when talking about local councils is, somewhat unsurprisingly, you can’t generalise. Any more than you can with say, energy companies, or shoe shops. Some will be good. Some will be dreadful.

When I was a freelancing designer, I worked for stints with 2 northern city councils at opposite ends of the M62. They couldn’t have been more different. Manchester was as slick, professional and efficient as any top level design agency, and their output was of an extremely high standard (despite my input). As aManchester Council tax payer myself, I was impressed with how my money was being spent.

The other end of the M62? Sweet Jesus! I’ve never seen anything like it! It was truly gob-smacking! People sat around doing absolutely **** all all day! A total absense of leadership or direction! Shambolic’management’! Useless staff! The higher up the food chain you went, the worse it got! Breathtaking inefficiencies! Appallingly amateurish output! It was absolutely staggering! I did a week, where I achieved absolutely nothing, invoiced them, and politely declined all their further offers of work. If that’d been my council tax paying for that, I’d be apoplectic!

But guess which the press report on? What does Eric Pickles highlight? They’ve no interest in councils like Burnley, who are imaginative, genuinely entrepaneurial, actively pro-business and ruthlessly efficient (not my words – the CBI’s), being phenomenally successful at attracting investment, and high skilled, high paid jobs, they want to talk about children’s services in Rotherham.

Because this all serves their slash and burn, privatising agenda!

How many companies would have coped with a 28% decrease in real funding without a deterioration in service levels?

Are you really claiming that service levels at councils have not been cut ? They deliver exactly the same before the cuts? Are you claiming the reports state that ?

Not even AS would try that one.

Fine complain to the independent bodies who are responsible for the conclusions.

You are being ridiculous now no one would claim there have been no cuts made to service no one. To say complain to them is just your way of refusing to discuss it or admit it.

A self pawn, brilliant.

If I cared I would have removed it with my edit.
It s still true that you quoted selectively and stopped at the bit where it no longer agreed with the point you were making and the relevant bit to this debate – ie Future cuts. You are highly selective with what you quote to the point it misleads.

Ps i think you are meant to turn the other cheek or forgive me or something. I am not sure he preached much about being smug but far be it from me to help you with your fairy tale at this time of the year.

You are still right that we need to discuss what local councils deliver and , equally importantly, dont deliver anymore as there are no more “efficiencies” to be made.

here is your full quote

Lets look at what you ommitted eh and see if we can work out why

While local authorities have tried to protect service users, there is emerging evidence that funding reductions have led to a fall in service volumes. Local authorities have tried to protect spending on core areas such as adult social care andchildren’s social care, and to make savings through efficiencies rather than reducing services. Nonetheless, and despite increased demand, provision of core services such as homecare and day care for adults and residential care for adults and children has reduced since 2010-11. Levels of reduction in services tend to be greatest among authorities facing the highest funding reductions. However, a reduction in the volume of activity does not necessarily imply a worsening in the quality of provision or outcomes for service users (paragraphs 1.15 to 1.18, Figures 3 and 4)

THM cherry picking again
http://www.nao.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Financial-sustainability-of-local-authorities-2014-summary.pdf

Why do you do this when we can just google your quote and get it all?

56% metropolitan and unitary councils that local auditors are concerned will not meet medium-term savings targets.
Its not great news is it?
They have managed so far, with reductions and efficiencies, but few think they will manage any further without issue. That is what we need to discuss assuming funding wont change

WOOSH!

Councils also fund a lot of the smaller charities that have to pick up the pieces when the latest Government initiative or policy is introduced. A charity I am involved with has seen a massive increase in the number of people wanting to use its services, and an increase in the complexity of the cases it sees. Many of the staff are bogged down dealing with the outcomes from changes in things like the Bedroom Tax, Employment Support Allowance, Personal Independent Payments etc. all imposed by the current Government without a thought as to how it would impact on the ground. I have seen people who are seriously ill having to live off next to nothing whilst they appeal against decisions made by the DWP and its agencies such as the inept and private company Atos.

We have had no additional funding for 3 years from our council, so staff (who aren’t particularly well-paid anyway) have had no wage increase yet are expected to pick up and solve the mess Ian Duncan Smith, Osborne, Cameron et al have created.

Philby, hate to break it to you but if you are funded by the council to provide a service you are not a charity, you are a supplier. You might not be profit making , you might be registered as charity but you are just an extention of the council. As such you have no more special status than any other supplier regardless of moral superiority of your work. If it’s deemed the service you provide can’t be afforded then it won’t get funded.

I’m in the Fire Service btw. Yes, I’m having the pension I signed up to in good faith stolen but compared to the huge cuts coming to the front line (Cameron before the last election ‘there will be no cut to front line services’) the pension debate is small fry

my pension that I signed up to in good faith has been stolen to keep your water bills down

we are going through the five yearly headcount reduction with 20% of some teams getting axed

How many companies would have coped with a 28% decrease in real funding without a deterioration in service levels?

I wouldn’t drink the water in Bristol in five years time if that’s your logic

binners – Member

The Tories seem intent on destroying the North. Because we don’t vote for them. Sensibly. Turkeys don’t generally vote for Christmas
who is your MP? who is the MP for the constituency directly North of you?

Putting libraries aside for one moment, do we reallt think that it is the role of local authorities to subsidise ballet and theatre?

our failing council also fund a football club

Not read the rest of the thread but…

I’m a teacher and the latest lot of cuts are grim. No money for books, hardly any working computers in the school and no money to replace them, getting told not to print or photocopy, every pencil a prisoner. And then to cap it all the usual drive to improve results year on year from the same group of people pushing the cuts through.

We all just want the best for our pupils but delivering this is getting harder and harder. As a result morale in teaching is at an all time low.

“I’m a teacher and the latest lot of cuts are grim. No money for books, hardly any working computers in the school and no money to replace them, getting told not to print or photocopy, every pencil a prisoner. And then to cap it all the usual drive to improve results year on year from the same group of people pushing the cuts through.”

Funding for education has increased year on year faster than inflation over the course of the current parliament – it’s risen 10% in 5 years and appears reasonably stable in real terms.

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/330717/PESA_2014_-_print.pdf

See data tables on page 20.

Putting libraries aside for one moment, do we reallt think that it is the role of local authorities to subsidise ballet and theatre?

Thats a debate I have had with my partner who runs a small arts council funded theatrre company. We have agreed to disagree!!
The point that THM’s assertion that services havent been cut is clearly wrong as I know of services that have been cut by Reading Council.

Funding for education has increased year on year faster than inflation over the course of the current parliament – it’s risen 10% in 5 years and appears reasonably stable in real terms.

If that’s the case I’ve got no idea where it’s all going because all I’ve seen for the last few years has been cuts. Class sizes have risen because staff have been made surplus to cut costs, teachers are on a wage freeze, funding for extra curricular activities has been cut, funding for CPD has been cut and whole school and departmental budgets have been cut by 1% or 1.5% every year for the last 3 years. The local authority where I work has targeted education for further cuts with one councillor saying publicly that education had been a ‘sacred cow’ for too long and couldn’t expect to escape the cuts.

The point that THM’s assertion that services havent been cut is clearly wrong

Now I know the hairy one has gone briefly, but no need to take his silliness on……as you say, please find “evidence” in this thread for YOUR exact assertion here.

And while you are doing this, think why I used the COMPARATIVE when talking about future cuts. Future cuts compared with what do you think…….?

And the very stupidest thing about the cuts to public services is that the private sector companies who take advantage of cuts in direct provision invariably get into trouble. They’re less efficient, they’re corrupt, they’re found with snouts in the trough, and they end up failing so catastrophically that the state is forced to pick up the pieces again. Think G4S, SERCO, Care UK, Capita, etc.

But poor people rarely vote Tory (indeed rarely vote, and looking at Labour who can blame them) and can usually be demonised and blamed for their own poverty and vulnerability………….