A suggestion for a few palatable cuts
January 29, 2013 7 Comments
It is beholden on all councillors, or at least those who acknowledge the reality of the position the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats have put us in, to find ways to save money in Southend-on-Sea. Here are a few suggestions.
Reduce the size of the Cabinet. By mergers, or persuading the leader and his deputy to assume more responsibilities, one could easily see a six-person Cabinet be equally effective in damaging our town. Cabinet membership attracts an additional allowance.
Cut councillor allowances. Anything between 10% and 25% would save somewhere between £50,000 and £150,000 per annum by my estimates. Doubtless the excuse that this requires independent intervention (an argument for the practisers of obfuscation) will be used. However, we must be seen to be taken our share of the pain. After all, we are all in this together.
Reduce the salaries of the top executives at the council. With shrinking budgets and staff numbers the arguments about responsibility used to justify their salaries diminishes.
Scrap the Outlook magazine. This Tory propaganda sheet invariably adorns the pink sacks pretty quickly after distribution anyway.
I am no fan of all-up elections – they exaggerate the worst effects of first past the post – but moving to these will save money. They are less democratic, but they also favour the two main parties. Since the other parties in the chamber seem intent on gifting us a doubling of our number of councillors then we may as well set aside principles for party advantage.
What would I do with the savings made, what cut would I no longer find a need for? There are so many to choose from, but I might be tempted to use the money to retain some of the council staff threatened with P45s. I have personal experience of the damage that unemployment wreaks, and one of the things I am in politics for is to see full employment.
(I should point out that these are my personal thoughts, and not those of the Labour group.)
Apparently if you reduce tax rates, tax-take goes up. So why not reduce council tax?
(It makes just as much sense)
I agree with all of the ideas as mentioned above and i did write to the council about the very ideas mentioned above. However the idea of not producing the Outlook is i think wrong as this is the only way of making sure that every house holder knows what will be happening in the Borough
I am however totaly against the Outlook being used by the Tory’s, Labour, L Ds or the Independents.
enfranchiseme2: Reducing council tax will not drive up tax take as there is a fixed number of dwellings attracting this tax.
Alan J Grubb: The Council issues press releases to the local media every day. This is more up-to-date and the free papers are also widely distributed.
he Free Press consists manly of adverts and you have to look long and hard for any council information, depending on where you live does depend on if you get the free paper. The Leigh Times is restricted to Leigh, parts of Chalkwell and a part of Westcliff, where it can be collected from the Libuary. The Standard is not delivered in this part of Westcliff, therefore the Outlook is the only sauce of information.
I agree with Alan about the Outlook magazine. Too frequently on the doorstep people complain about not knowing what is going on. Recently however, i have noticed a decrease in this and an increase in people quoting from Outlook. I do think it could down to bi annual publication though.
Del, I have knocked literally thousands of doors in Southend, in different wards, in different years, at different times. Never has anyone quoted from outlook to me. That said if you think outlook is bad you should see the vanity project things RDC send through the door patting themselves on the back.
I have a friend over in Kent where they also have something like the Outlook we send each other a copy as a resuilt i have put forward a suggestion that the libuary service should be able to give a service that is happening in Maidstone whereby the resident can pay there council bills at the local libuary. Taking it one step further why not pay the Utility bills through the libuary including the TV Licence?