If Tameside
council wants to save money, then the big question that many constituents have
been asking; and still await the big answer, is why do we need 3 councillors in
each ward? That’s 3 lots of allowances, expense claims, and possibly 3 lots of
free pensions to pay!
Ask a Tameside councillor to justify their existence
and invariably they’ll tell you they are overworked looking after the welfare
of their constituents, but with a population of approx 215.000, that equates to
approximately 3772 citizens per councillor. Contrast that with London’s 25
councillors who administer the affairs of over 7.6million citizens (that’s
304,000 per councillor) or New York with a population of 8.4million, they only
have 51 councillors, which averages 165,000 each.
Based on those
figure, we could easily trim each ward down to two councillors and save maybe
£200,000 - per year, every year!
The purpose of a councillor is to represent the people of a
local ward in their council. They are elected to bring their expertise and
experience to address the specific needs of their local community. These duties
are meant to be separate from their private and professional lives outside the
council and their position is voluntary. Any payments they receive are not
intended to represent earnings but instead to compensate them for incidental
expenses incurred in fulfilling their duties in local government such as the
use of their phones, transportation and office expenses.
That being the case, several of Tameside's councillors must be putting in quite a
lot of mileage and been constantly on the phone’ to rack up £35.000 every
year in expenses! That’s a fiver short
of £100 per day, 365 days a year!
Poor things, they must must be worn out!
Then we have council leaders calling for us to engage in ‘The Big
Conversation’ but as far as I understand, communication is a two-way street, therefore without two way dialogue,
there can no ‘Big Conversation’ and in fact there has been little or no
dialog or democracy in our council since the cabinet system was introduced.
If you study it, you can immediately see how it is a benefit
to the officials as a type of empowerment, but to the detriment of the
electorate; it’s also a disadvantage to many of the council’s own councillors
who would like to say more if they were given the chance.
Under the cabinet system; a system that was introduced by
the last council leader; reminiscent of Yoda; the wise one, pontificating to his
underlings, which in reality, renders those who are not in the
cabinet with no real power to change, or influence what the select few have decided,
or do - regardless of their roles on scrutiny committees, special panels or
other groups.
In fact; as an example of just how undemocratic and unnecessarily
costly this system is; cannot be better illustrated than the fact that when a
certain councillor asked for information regarding a council decision, it is alleged that they
were told to submit a FOI request. (The cost of an average FOI request is
approx £293.00 each)
In essence, for those
councillors who are not active within the inner-cabinet, their roll is almost perfunctory,
never the less; they are still roles that attract additional, unwarranted, and
unnecessary ‘Special Responsibility Allowances!’ So, apart from the chosen
'few', most of the remaining councillors may as well go home and put their
feet up until the next election, when they can be wheeled out again to bolster
Labours standing.
Governing by this system; and judging by a number of recent
decisions, they might as well hand the entire running of Tameside council over
to their friends at Tesco's. We would at least then have the benefit of a
superbly run organisation doing what the council was really intended to do –
i.e. sweep the streets, mend the potholes, improve the standard of our schools,
empty the bins on the day they say they’re going to empty them and look after
council tax payers by running all the social services properly. Above all, we
need openness and honesty.
You might think this is typical of Tameside, but it’s
happening in councils up and down the country. They too have to make tough
decisions- should they cut all the daft jobs- the outreach units, diversity
officers and traveller liaison groups? Should they get rid of all the
staff on long term 'sick' as well as all the spare 'managers', 'facilitators'
and 'team leaders'? Or should they spend less on expensive and pointless
'training', new slogans and rebranding consultants?
No, no, no. Don't be silly! It's much easier to stop filling in the potholes,
close the towns libraries and shut down all the swimming pools.
And if we object, we have to put up with clipped remarks
from a narrow-minded collection of career councillors who saddle us with ever
increasing burdens of red tape and bureaucracy; policy and layers and layers of
management, hidden behind hyperbole, semantics and half-baked schemes.
Increasingly, and to our detriment, these members of the
inner sanctum now seem compelled to get involved in projects that are far
beyond their capabilities, which merely allow senior officers to earn lots of
money, whilst producing nothing. An example of this style of management is best
illustrated by the news regarding the loss of M&S from Ashton town centre. That,
together with the continuous building of out of town retail outlets and giant
supermarkets, has demonstrated how to kill our high streets, town centres and
markets. All too often, presumably through a total lack of market intelligence,
the last thing they encourage is 'extra business' and street vitality, which is
after all what promotes the heavy foot fall which brings in the wealth; which
in turn enables more taxes to be collected, and hopefully, spent wisely.
Let’s be honest; as recent readers letters show, they can’t
even operate a comprehensive parking plan for the disabled, or dream up a
colour coded refuse collection scheme that operate equally throughout the
borough!
They say they are listening, but this council sees criticism
as being confrontational. So rather than embrace, accept or act on it, they will do
everything in their power to make critics seem irrational and their suggestions
or analysis, made to appear absurd. This behaviour is typical of quasi-politicians who have
come to imitate their Westminster counterparts by saying one thing whilst
practicing another.
As I mentioned, the
council has spent thousands on launching and operating their ‘Big Conversation’
yet should one try to contact their local councillor with a question or complaint;
they simply ignore your letters! They have become as popular with the public as
is our bankers!
I’m beginning to think that political parties should be
banned from Local Government. Constituents should vote for the person who they
reckon will look after their interests - not be faced with a system where party
whips can enforce a vote because it is either Labour/Tory/Lib Dem policy.
I’d like to kick off 2013 by asking if the ‘gongs’ given out
in the New Year Honours list has now reached an all-time low?
But as for these sporting Olympians – I thought the whole
business was about taking part? Surely winning the medals should be reward
enough. Winning a medal at the Olympics, although a truly wonderful and
brilliant achievement should not automatically warrant an OBE, CBE, MBE, or any
other award!
One small fact that raises an interesting question is that wives
of Knights can be called "Lady” now, presuming that same-sex marriage were to become legal in the UK,
as David Cameron is bent on pushing through Parliament, would Sir Elton John and his partner David; should they choose to become full-on married; would
they be known as Sir Elton and Lady David John?
