On 2006-12-16 03:06:02 +0000, John Beardmore said:

I'll support what I think is justified thanks.
Sometimes there is more to life than giving everybody what they want
just because they happen to want it.

I see. That doesn't seem like a particularly democratic viewpoint to me.

Well - did people vote for speed limits and taxes ?

Do they pay for speed limits?



You disappoint me. Didn't they teach you basic economics on this eco
course of yours, or would that have been too inconvenient to the cause?

They touch on the limitations of seeing performance purely in terms of
economic indicators.

"Touch on"... I think that that says it all.


The council tax payers where I live are taking it very seriously and
are pushing for detail of what each department actually does do and the
costs involved, including the duplications that arise from of
management consultants.
Well - all of that can only be good !

Oh definitely. Then the questions will be asked as to how and when
this will be reduced.

How, when and IF.

It'll be a *when*. No doubt about that. The incompetence needs to
be exposed.



so the customer might as well deal direcly with the supplier and cut
out the middle man. Clear enough?
Clear, simple, simplistic, but not in my view correct.
It's hard to come to any other conclusion unless you believe that
Father Christmas funds local authorities.
Well - even you seem to envisage LAs continuing to have a role, and a
thing is not rendered unnecessary by somebody having to pay for it !
Either the LAs or a central licensing body -
Well - either way, it has to be resourced.
Of course, but not anything like the wasteful levels it is today.
Maybe, but we only have your assertion for that, and you seem to have
no more than limited local observation and prejudice to justify your
position.

From what I hear, the waste is quite widespread. Council tax levels
have gone up all over the country and the return has not increased to
match it.

Is this not due to a decrease in central government funding for LAs as
opposed to simple embezzlement ?

I don't think that anybody suggested that anyone was doing anything
illegal. Nonetheless, the massive increases have to be investigated..
In absence of further information, one has to ask the questions as to
why. It's very easy to hide behind the "someone else's fault"
argument. However, the alarm bells ring as soon as one sees external
consultants being brought in to do work that should be being done
internally. If it happens in one place and department then it will
probably be happening elsewhere. In my example of a traffic scheme, I
also learned that the same firm of management consultants had sold
their services to at least 4 other surrounding local authorities.





certainly not at current staffing levels.
Well you seem to be keen to give who ever it is more work to do !
If this means more work per local civil servant then I'm very keen on
the idea; or even better less work by them in total and substantially
fewer heads.
Well - we won't know what might be possible until you detail your
proposal will we ?

I already have. The proposal is to remove local authorities from the
food chain in waste collection and for it to be replaced by licensed
free enterprise operators.

Still sadly lacking in detail.



I didn't set out to provide detail, just the principle and the reasons for it.