Like all other local authorities my council is squealing like a piglet about cutbacks and the dearth of money in its coffers. This week I have witnessed , outside my office no less, a total waste of ratepayers hard earned cash. Due to an ongoing hullabaloo over parking , the council has done 2 things (so far) :
1. Chopped down the "No waiting signpost" and replaced it with not 1 but 3 "No loading signposts" - why could they simply not have used the existing pole ?
2. Installed bollards to force a shopkeeper to re-arrange his parking bays . They are to be removed (at council cost) once he complies . The workers have been on 2 days and put in 3 or 4 and will return later to put in another half a dozen. Talk about productivity .
So if they do actually employ beancounters how come this kind of behaviour goes on - what exactly is the role of the council's beancounters ?
Is it only my local authority is does yours also pour taxpayers' money down the drain ?
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We had some 'regeneration' a couple of years back
We got:
A silly metal sculpture of a duck, that looks like something a 6 yr old would design, and which cost over £25K (or so I believe).ugly and ridiculous kerbside bollards that match the rail supports of our award winning pedestrian bridge over the river (which cost millions), but the bollards look unfinished because they don't have a rail as the bridge does (and the bridge is out of sight at that place) but we do have the holes for the fittings.established flowering trees ripped up and replaced by non-flowering younger treeslots of other useless 'features', signs, and new bins, but they illogically removed the bin that was always overflowing (near the Chinese take away).
We watched the work while it happened, which generally comprised of 6 men on site around 6 hrs per day, 2 working at any one time while four watched, interspersed by several breaks. Four officials regularly inspecting and watching which usually took around 4 hours per trip. This involved much discussion between themselves and inspection and taking of notes on clipboards, but no discussion with the 'workers'.
If business wasted money in such a fashion they wouldn't survive.
Of course they do
It's the nature of councils, not only to waste money but to be seen to be doing it. They will be damned if they will pay the dinner ladies £0.30 more per hour but show them a high profile white elephant and they can't help throw money at it.
I'm not sure it's fair to lay the blame with the accountants though - their role is to properly account for this spending & budget for more, not try to ascertain if they get any sort of value for money. I'm sure any that try don't last long.
Accountant: That seems an awful lot of money for a metal duck. Do we really need it?
Council Chief: Yes we really need it. Just pay it and make sure it’s correctly accounted for.
Accountant: OK Chief.
The accountants just do their job. It’s the “blue sky thinkers” that make the spending decisions.
I won't give the whole story but my local authority are lucky I'm honest! They had no record of the fact that we had a musical instrument worth about £2,000 on loan from them & tried to give us another instrument!
Local authority has lost the plot
Things are so heated now over this parking row that all common sense has gone out of the window and the chief exec looks like he will spend whatever it takes not to lose face
I tried to post a great picture of me parking so that the yellow line could not be painted . The contractors left it half done (no end T bar so not legal yet) and said they would be back, no doubt at extra cost. It was all good natured , even the usual parking attendant was smiling . But the jobsworth at the office who was on the phone to the contractor was spitting blood telling me I was illegally parked even though she was 5 miles away and had no video link . I invited her to call the traffic police . Meantime an angry resident waded in grumbling that the lines will push us all further up the road to outside her house.
You can imagine it . This one run , unless of course the council's beancounters draw their red pens and put an end to it
For some security reason I cannot paste the picture but here is a link
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CS4TKqyWwAAamRu.jpg
And an hour later my motor failed its MOT landing me a bill of over a grand .....one of those days
14 hours ago
Parking is massive area that local authorities get wrong.
I would love to know how much revenue it actually generates after deducting the cost of administrating the scheme, and the cap ex on equipment, the hassle it creates and effect it has on small town centres.
In Co Durham the council has introduced quite high parking tarriffs in all of the towns which has basically killed all the high streets.
No one seems to have twigged the fact the convenience of ample free parking in out of town shopping is the big draw for people.
All the high streets now are full of charity shops who pay no business rates and the area has become shabby. Newcastle did a scheme called "free after five" where all parking was free to try and boost later shopping into the town centre away from retail parks which was a massive success.
I spend a lot of time in Northumberland and you can rarely find a parking machine that works. They rely on tourists for business in the coastal areas and I suspect the locals are responsible for jamming the machines to effectively allow free parking, as a few shop keepers just wink when you ask why is the machine not working.
Parking and house prices
Allowing unfettered parking in busy shopping areas could be a canny way of keeping the lid on housing costs . After all it is a nice wee negative aspect of the local properties that won't cause a crash , just a slight deflation.
Enter the NIMBYs who will have bought just before the proposal comes into play , worried about swooning prices
On another Notice Board I once stated my disenchantment with the inefficiency and waste in the
Public Sector. The response I received from Public Sector accountants was at best aggressive.
Having undertaken audit work and projects in various parts of the public sector I stand by my comments and the fact that I would think carefully before undertaking any more work in that sector.
Public sector
I am sure there are conscientous public accountants but on the whole I would reckon that the system either ties their hand or institutionalises their line of thought
The political ramifications of this parking debacle will reverberate locally and will result in a swing from Labour to Tory starting next May
All for want of an answered phone call.....