Why Do Councils Go Bust?

Clive said:

yep - why doesn’t this kind of massive make the news more ?

i can’t recall the exact number as this was a conversation a year or so ago however it was something like 60/70% of their budget on pensions !

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Why in the fudge would you choose to finance your own pension plan? Surely it would be better handled by a third party who understands investments?

Social care is the biggest problem for councils. Everybody thinks its the councils job to look after their granddad or aunt etc. If its your family member its your problem not the "councils"

bluebell said:

Right woking borough council, one of many? So the post office people were "accused" of stealing money and a public enquiry is been looking into this? So so why arnt the "people" in woking council been made, yes made to answer for their actions on burdening the tax payers, council tax payers of this massive truely massive waste of public yes public money? They should be "publicly" made before a public forum, answer for their actions and then made to "pay"?

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Well they kind of are. It was a Conservative administration who ran up the debts in a highly misguided attempt to boost its finances by borrowing money from the Treasury to build capital projects which it then could not sell or rent. They were voted out and the council is now Lib-Dem who have to find a way to carry on under the guidance of government commissioners. This involves a 10% hike in council tax so the voters get to pay for electing a deeply incompetent council. You should be careful who you vote for.

Year before last council rocked up here to fix a small road that goes through the farm. 2 teams of lads turned up spent first hour & half doing f**k all anyway……. Jus now toilet hire firm rocked up with a portable loo I asked the foreman wtf do u need one of them for can’t u jus have a pee on the verge…? No we gotta have one by law I was like ffs Couple days later job was finished they packed up & left. After a month the portable loo was still there the hire firm had been out twice to clean out the feckin thing that had never even been used…..!!! in the end I phoned the company and told them to come fetch the dam thing….. I wonder how much it cost the council to hire that loo for the month that never got used……….???????
And that’s why councils have no money - same as the NHS I’m affraid - extremely poorly run, catastrophic waste & needless red tape….
It makes you cry……

Ceri said:

Year before last council rocked up here to fix a small road that goes through the farm. 2 teams of lads turned up spent first hour & half doing f**k all anyway……. Jus now toilet hire firm rocked up with a portable loo I asked the foreman wtf do u need one of them for can’t u jus have a pee on the verge…? No we gotta have one by law I was like ffs Couple days later job was finished they packed up & left. After a month the portable loo was still there the hire firm had been out twice to clean out the feckin thing that had never even been used…..!!! in the end I phoned the company and told them to come fetch the dam thing….. I wonder how much it cost the council to hire that loo for the month that never got used……….???????
And that’s why councils have no money - same as the NHS I’m affraid - extremely poorly run, catastrophic waste & needless red tape….
It makes you cry……

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Steady on- not all NHS organisations are a shower. The ones getting in the news a lot- probably are poorly run, but not all. Some are actively expanding and diversifying their services. It's not one universal organisation, it's a system of numerous competing businesses.

I had to wait a minute, in a narrow lane, while a couple steady old lads filled a pothole.
One of them came round to explain they wouldn't be long, and I asked how it was going?
(he was working for the latest of a string of 'independent contractors'....so not technically a council employee.)

'Not very well' came the response.
He and his chum, miles out in the sticks, 10s of miles from base, were given a list of potholes , all on a handheld lectronic device.
They filled each, took a pic i think, and moved on.
Sadly, the device only listed about a third of the marked potholes in this lane.
So the lads spent more of their day moving from lane to lane than actually fixing holes.
Just stupidly wasteful.

then...
I've been pointing out a collapsed culvert on our entrance road for over 10 years.
The lads occasionally come and fill in some holes, but the stream running down the lane is obviously doing a lot of the damage.
I've offered, several times, to replace the culvert at my own expense...but 'NO! You mustn't touch it'
Then, this last autumn, a fella came and spray marked the latest crop of potholes...spraying onto the water running down the road.
I offered again to do the culvert, before he sent his team round.
'Yes, thankyou'.
We did that, leaving hardcore packed in the opened trench ready for them to stuff some tarmac in- as agreed.
Where are they now?
Not feckin here...so we've got a trench, and potholes. At least the culvert is fixed now.

Further along the lane, water runs across the road where wagons unload materials inbound to our place. (the further side of a very narrow bridge)
The gutters will never be re-instated as they used to be in days of old, and this rising water needs piping away.
As the tarmac was completely shot, I offered to fund both pipework, and complete fresh tarmac.
(The substrata is floating on bog, and it is wagons furnishing my mill that have really caused the damage...fairs fair)

Contractor hired, all agreed, everything set in place.
But before we could do anything, a large team of their lads had turned up, dug everything up and started laying new tar (onto the running water) before I heard them.
Just gross pathetic incompetence, and that's just the roads around me.

In the nearby hamlet, several households are retired public servants, on (I believe, Council funded) pensions of £70k+. ...............er......and we wonder whats going wrong?

Clive said:

public sector pensions WAY to generous for decades and we are now paying for that

a friend works in local authority HR - she tells me thousands retired in their 40’s on final salary and often index linked pensions and paying that is the vast majority of their budget demand

these pensions are a scandal no one seems to talk about

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It was known as the 85 year rule, if your age plus years of service totalled 85 you could retire on your index linked pension. When my sister went to work at our council aged 17 there were two men in the department who joined when they left school at 14, they reached the 85 point aged 49.5 and duly departed. She reckons they both lived into their 90's drawing a pension for more years than they worked. I believe this rule was scrapped for new joiners about 20 years ago, but its effect will carry on for many years.
Likewise nearly all police officers used to sign up as cadets when they left school at 16, became full officers on their 18th birthday with pension kicking in on their 48th birthday after 30 years service. These days at least in my area its near to impossible to become a paid police officer unless you have done a few years as a special or are in your late 20's as a minimum, the result is that it pushed the pension age into the late 50's or even the 60's making a vast difference to the future payout.

Historically public sector pay was poor but the holiday and pension was great, Blair screwed the system by bumping up the pay and leaving the holiday and pension as it was. I recall a person i worked with applying for a job at the local university, same skills/qualifications required, pay was about 5% less but holidays increased by 50%, hours were 15% less and pension was brilliant. As he was a lazy git he took the job despite having a bit less money at the end of the week.

Clive said:

public sector pensions WAY to generous for decades and we are now paying for that

a friend works in local authority HR - she tells me thousands retired in their 40’s on final salary and often index linked pensions and paying that is the vast majority of their budget demand

these pensions are a scandal no one seems to talk about

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Most of these crazy pension agreements protecting all public employees at vast expense were forced upon the taxpayer by Blair ensuring that any future government was under a legal obligation to keep taxpayers coughing up. It's made it high nigh impossible to sack them, left wing civil servants who obstruct legislation included, because of the horrendous cost of doing so which taxpayers are finding out right now to their cost.

betternextyear said:

Social care is the biggest problem for councils. Everybody thinks its the councils job to look after their granddad or aunt etc. If its your family member its your problem not the "councils"

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If only someone would twig that keeping all these old alive forever is biting us all on the bums. Then the NHS and councils would have some capacity for other things then.

betternextyear said:

Social care is the biggest problem for councils. Everybody thinks its the councils job to look after their granddad or aunt etc. If its your family member its your problem not the "councils"

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I don't think that is true. If you have assets worth more than about 25,000 the council is not obliged to pay for your care I understand?

ollie989898 said:

I don't think that is true. If you have assets worth more than about 25,000 the council is not obliged to pay for your care I understand?

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You are correct but the majority get care paid for.

ollie989898 said:

I don't think that is true. If you have assets worth more than about 25,000 the council is not obliged to pay for your care I understand?

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1/4 of families have under £500 cash savings. You soon burn through £25k of it's £1000 a week in a "care" home.

Campbell said:

Until there is some sort of personal responsibility placed on these council [or any public] officials nothing will change. I read about Performance Bonuses... but never about under performance penalties. Just read about Hereford council organising the painting of double yellows on a roundabout [don't ask] cost £300, found out it was a cockup, cost £1300 to have the lines removed. They are now propose spending £230k, inc some grant money, on replacing 12 [sedum planted roof] bus station shelters supplied by a company in Berkshire. As a reader commented, apparently it seems none of the many great local engineering companies can build a bus shelter...........

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Near us is a quiet lane with a place to park.Quite often I see council men on road maintenance parked up reading reading papers or snoozing .On one occasion there was two vans ,a mini digger and 4 men who were meant to be cleaning some roadside ditches,they did about half an hours work and then parked for the rest of the day ! I challenged them and their reply was that it was too wet to do the ditch.
I said it was drier further along the road and the one replied that his mate was waiting for a phone call and there wasn't any signal on down the road.

Also layers of bureaucracy and clip boards cost councils millions along with a poor attitude to responsibility and work ethics.

ollie989898 said:

Steady on- not all NHS organisations are a shower. The ones getting in the news a lot- probably are poorly run, but not all. Some are actively expanding and diversifying their services. It's not one universal organisation, it's a system of numerous competing businesses.

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Behind the scenes is a management disaster area.
Naaaarfik Hospital management is in the throes of ‘adjusting’ the specifications of the original, and agreed, build specs. They are costing vast sums to save a little sum. More Architects fees, more Structural Engineers fees & etc.
Delays and over-spend will be or is the inevitable result
SS

teslacoils said:

If only someone would twig that keeping all these old alive forever is biting us all on the bums. Then the NHS and councils would have some capacity for other things then.

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Do you have a cut-off age in mind when the elderly should be sent to the anaerobic digesters, bearing in mind most TFF users seem to be in their70s?

texelburger said:

Near us is a quiet lane with a place to park.Quite often I see council men on road maintenance parked up reading reading papers or snoozing .On one occasion there was two vans ,a mini digger and 4 men who were meant to be cleaning some roadside ditches,they did about half an hours work and then parked for the rest of the day ! I challenged them and their reply was that it was too wet to do the ditch.
I said it was drier further along the road and the one replied that his mate was waiting for a phone call and there wasn't any signal on down the road.

Also layers of bureaucracy and clip boards cost councils millions along with a poor attitude to responsibility and work ethics.

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I was stuck in traffic yesterday and watched an orange clad operative use a special contraption to gauge how much out of level a 600 x 600 paving slab was on the pavement.
First thing that came to mind was ‘how much did this contraption cost’?
Second thing I thought was what was wrong with this persons eyes and ability to reason.
Yes the slab was a trip hazard and yes it required re-laying.
Perhaps the latest ‘elf-n-safety’ course requires that there is a mahoosive paper trail behind every manual operation as this then justifies several layers of ‘management’ before the repair of a 600 x 600 paving slab occurs
SS