The rising cost of living

[bickster]

Just now, Demitri_C said:

There shouldnt be rises

How would you feel if someone said you'll never get a pay rise again and in fact due to inflation, your wages will go down every year?

That's what you just wished on every council employee

[Demitri_C]

Just now, bickster said:

How would you feel if someone said you'll never get a pay rise again and in fact due to inflation, your wages will go down every year?

That's what you just wished on every council employee

Let me ask you this do you think councils deserve a pay rise?

Lets put NI up then so i can get a pay rise too then 

[bickster]

Just now, Demitri_C said:

Let me ask you this do you think councils deserve a pay rise?

Lets put NI up then so i can get a pay rise too then 

Everyone deserves a payrise, every year unless inflation is negative

[Genie]

Only 10% of the council tax stays with the local council too. 

[Genie]

2 minutes ago, Demitri_C said:

Let me ask you this do you think councils deserve a pay rise?

Lets put NI up then so i can get a pay rise too then 

Most people will be paying more NI if they have had a payrise.

[Demitri_C]

Just now, bickster said:

Everyone deserves a payrise, every year unless inflation is negative

Well im not getting one so why should the council who quite frankly in my opinion dont deserve it

Pot holes everywhere, money wasted on crappy investments that dont work, bins fortnighty, officws opened leas houra and eveeything is practically online or remote. Do no for mw dobt deserve it.

But the bigger argument is putting bills up thia much when thwre is a coat of living crisis 

 

[Seat68]

7 minutes ago, Genie said:

Only 10% of the council tax stays with the local council too. 

That seems wrong, I have done a quick google and a range of different councils spend almost all of their council tax locally. 10% seems a very low figure.

You may be talking about the figure that remains with the district council, as the lions share goes to the county council (In Staffordshires case) which would be the expectation anyway due to the services each provide.

Edited March 13, 2023 by Seat68

[bickster]

5 minutes ago, Demitri_C said:

Pot holes everywhere, money wasted on crappy investments that dont work, bins fortnighty, officws opened leas houra and eveeything is practically online or remote. Do no for mw dobt deserve it.

You know who is REALLY responsible for that?

Clue: It's not the council

[Demitri_C]

Just now, bickster said:

You know who is REALLY responsible for that?

Clue: It's not the council

I think at some point you have to hold individuals responsible not just the government bicks

Councils waste alot of money on rubbish

[bickster]

1 minute ago, Demitri_C said:

I think at some point you have to hold individuals responsible not just the government bicks

Councils waste alot of money on rubbish

Refuse Collection is a large cost, yes

[Genie]

1 hour ago, Seat68 said:

That seems wrong, I have done a quick google and a range of different councils spend almost all of their council tax locally. 10% seems a very low figure.

You may be talking about the figure that remains with the district council, as the lions share goes to the county council (In Staffordshires case) which would be the expectation anyway due to the services each provide.

Yes, that’s what I meant. Only 10% of the tax collected by Tamworth Borough Council stays with them. 

[blandy]

1 hour ago, Demitri_C said:

Well I'm not getting one so why should the council who quite frankly in my opinion don't deserve it

Pot holes everywhere, money wasted on crappy investments that don't work, bins fortnightly, offices opened fewer hours and everything is practically online or remote. Do no for mw dobt deserve it.

But the bigger argument is putting bills up this much when there is a coat of living crisis 

I've translated some of your post and will try and answer the bits I now understand, Dem

If there are potholes everywhere (and there are), it's because there's not the cash to fix them. If the councils don't increase the bills, they will (because of inflation) have even less money to fix the old ones, or new ones that appear. It'll mean even worse roads.

The crappy investments - yes to a point. But they've had to try and raise money that way because central government has massively cut the money councils get, and has restricted them from increasing council tax bills to raise money that way. Some of those investments paid off, a few failed.

The cut backs of services and office hours have been to save money, too - less heating, less hours worked by staff, so wage costs are lower than they would have been.

Putting the tax bills up is also because cost of living has gone up for the councils  - their energy, their wage bills, their fuel costs, raw material costs etc.

The blame lies almost totally with the tory government, not with the councils.

And yes, it's another punch in the guts for the ordinary people having to pay another extra cost. Blame the tories.

[sidcow]

1 hour ago, Demitri_C said:

Councils waste alot of money on rubbish

Like what? 

They're barely holding it together so I can't see them frittering away precious cash. 

[Demitri_C]

35 minutes ago, sidcow said:

Like what? 

They're barely holding it together so I can't see them frittering away precious cash. 

LTNs, cycle lanes, plant pots in middle of the road and seating/smoking areas in the middle of the pavement (if you saw the ones near me you would just shake your head in despair as people just sit there throw their rubbish and just smoke weed.

53 minutes ago, blandy said:

I've translated some of your post and will try and answer the bits I now understand, Dem

If there are potholes everywhere (and there are), it's because there's not the cash to fix them. If the councils don't increase the bills, they will (because of inflation) have even less money to fix the old ones, or new ones that appear. It'll mean even worse roads.

The crappy investments - yes to a point. But they've had to try and raise money that way because central government has massively cut the money councils get, and has restricted them from increasing council tax bills to raise money that way. Some of those investments paid off, a few failed.

The cut backs of services and office hours have been to save money, too - less heating, less hours worked by staff, so wage costs are lower than they would have been.

Putting the tax bills up is also because cost of living has gone up for the councils  - their energy, their wage bills, their fuel costs, raw material costs etc.

The blame lies almost totally with the tory government, not with the councils.

And yes, it's another punch in the guts for the ordinary people having to pay another extra cost. Blame the tories.

Yeah as i said in my orginal post i blame the tories but i cant speak for every council but the ones around me have wasted money. It does happen.

I cabt justify the increase 

Im curious whats everyone else paying? Anyone paying close to or more than what i am?

[markavfc40]

3 hours ago, Demitri_C said:

Well im not getting one so why should the council who quite frankly in my opinion dont deserve it

Pot holes everywhere, money wasted on crappy investments that dont work, bins fortnighty, officws opened leas houra and eveeything is practically online or remote. Do no for mw dobt deserve it.

But the bigger argument is putting bills up thia much when thwre is a coat of living crisis 

 

55 minutes ago, Demitri_C said:

LTNs, cycle lanes, plant pots in middle of the road and seating/smoking areas in the middle of the pavement

Councils cover a huge range of services and they have had their central government funding decimated since 2010. Central government funding makes up around 60% of a councils funds, business rates around 15% and your council tax around 25%, so just a quarter of what they have to spend comes from council tax.

Due to the decimation of central government funding since 2010 we'll have all noticed that libraries/community centres/swimming pools have disappeared. Adult social care has also been decimated along with things like youth services. 

Councils raising council tax by 3/4/5% is a drop in the ocean and will barely allow many to be able to keep their heads above water. Inflation is running at 10% for starters.

It is interesting that you mention the state of the roads. I am a highways maintenance engineer and trust me the money councils can afford to spend on highways maintenance is nowhere near what is required to get all roads up to anything like an acceptable standard and year on year the situation just becomes worse.

As for saying they waste money on things like cycle lanes etc. That will be because councils can bid for money from central government that is ring fenced for those kind of schemes. It could be cycle lanes/routes, traffic calming, pedestrian facilities. They simply couldn't use that money for maintenance. 

Edited March 13, 2023 by markavfc40

[Davkaus]

I also think it's important to keep in mind that there will always be some level of inefficiencies in any large organisation. We've had over a decade of public services attempting to save every penny they can and there's not much meat left on the bone. At some point, trying to save money starts to cost more, once you've addressed all the low hanging fruit.

An obvious example would be years and years of salary cuts leading not only to increased recruitment costs, but to inefficiencies caused by brain drain, but it's a lot harder to represent that on a spreadsheet.

[Demitri_C]

1 hour ago, markavfc40 said:

 

It is interesting that you mention the state of the roads. I am a highways maintenance engineer and trust me the money councils can afford to spend on highways maintenance is nowhere near what is required to get all roads up to anything like an acceptable standard and year on year the situation just becomes worse.

 

Interesting ill take your word for it mark.  If you saw some of the pot holes on busy roads round where here. Some are like craters its ridiculous 

We literally are going back in time 

[sidcow]

1 hour ago, Davkaus said:

I also think it's important to keep in mind that there will always be some level of inefficiencies in any large organisation. We've had over a decade of public services attempting to save every penny they can and there's not much meat left on the bone. At some point, trying to save money starts to cost more, once you've addressed all the low hanging fruit.

An obvious example would be years and years of salary cuts leading not only to increased recruitment costs, but to inefficiencies caused by brain drain, but it's a lot harder to represent that on a spreadsheet.

Yup. And the NHS having to reduce staff to such an extent that they can no longer function so have to hire loads of Locums at far higher expense than just paying the full time staff on the first place. 

[Davkaus]

6 minutes ago, foreveryoung said:

I totally understand the Government have **** up the country, financially above all. But some need to remember, people still do shit jobs and **** up, in the NHS, train services, Councils. I mean how many mistakes have there been in Child social care lately, that cannot be blamed on money, yes it could be blamed on pressures due to lack of staff, but unfortunately we still have to do the best we can, an basically alot of people don't. We have all worked with lazy asses, who can't be arsed, especially the youff of today. So even though absolutely everything seems to come down to the Tories, employees **** up too.

 

Agreed, there are dossers and incompetent **** in all lines of work. And you're quite right money isn't a silver bullet for that, but it certainly helps:

• More funding for training (for incompetence, not so much laziness)
• More money for improving processes, and monitoring compliance with those processes
• More staff to investigate failures 

Any large organisation has low performers. A healthy organisation has enough cover and oversight to prevent, mitigate or investigate failures. An organisation that can barely function can make the impact of poor performers far more catastrophic.

In the idealistic heads of a non-malicious tory that believes in maximising efficiency, you can cut out the dead wood and have teams that are solely made of competent motivated workers. In the real world, a good team can carry a bit of dead wood and though you try and improve them or manage them out, it's kind of pie in the sky to expect there to not be a few strugglers.

[Davkaus]

I see dead posts.