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Would Councils Risk It?
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[Deleted User]
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All this talk about services shutting down got me to thinking... (uh oh)
Councils can do what they want with their money (agreed that there will be less of it this year) - but they make the priorities of what they spend the money on. They could spend it all on libraries or on a gold statue on their forecourt.
Do you think any Labour councils will target things like libraries and other "nice" things and make their council-tax-payers suffer just to make a political point about the Coalition Government?
Will those councils who have massively overspent in the past take the cuts as an excuse for swingeing cuts and blame it all on the Government?
Councils can do what they want with their money (agreed that there will be less of it this year) - but they make the priorities of what they spend the money on. They could spend it all on libraries or on a gold statue on their forecourt.
Do you think any Labour councils will target things like libraries and other "nice" things and make their council-tax-payers suffer just to make a political point about the Coalition Government?
Will those councils who have massively overspent in the past take the cuts as an excuse for swingeing cuts and blame it all on the Government?
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I suggest you ask the same question of Tory run councils because If it is anything like when the last Tory government was in power then we will have a weekly bin service and the Tory run councils won't and we will have the residents of these towns fly tipping on the outskirts of our town again :mad:
So they will have to focus their cuts on discretionary spending like libraries (i.e. cutting the number and the opening hours), leisure centres, road repairs first. If they don't they will be breaking the law and the councillors/Chief Officers could be sued.
So no!
You really have quite a jaundiced view of the world don't you - I'm starting to feel a little sorry for you.
Most councils do their best to deliver services to their communities and whilst they may not always get it right there are a lot of committed and community minded councillors plus large numbers of hard working public servants ensuring that the cuts affect the front line as little as possible.
So what have you attempted to do about that - have you lobbied your local councillor, attended council meetings, put yourself up for election to ensure better decisions are made - or have you been too busy trying to make money to bother with these 'big society' activities?
I don't live there anymore. It's sad to see the town falling apart though. Labour are back in now, so we will have to see if they make a difference.
It's so easy to sit on the sidelines and gripe - to what extent are you prepared to actually get involved to try to change things?
What about hard-working volunteers - are they to be looked down on because they are not wealth creators?
Oh yes, I'm bl**dy certain of it. The Labour council round here are making a big issue about 'having to slash services and road repairs' etc, while they've just commissioned four bronze statues to a (Labour) councillor who died recently.
They've also started up a 'virtual town hall' and other schemes, all the while loudly moaning about 'Tory cuts'.
Just before Christmas, they sent everyone a so-called Christmas card, which contained a puff-piece about our local councillor, saying how much he had achieved over the last 2 years, and how the 'Government cuts' were going to undo all the marvellous things Labour had done.
I feel sure there will be some councils that will deliberately cut services rather than finding savings; I especially worry about some of those councils where there is little or no functional opposition (there are two East London boroughs where every single councillor is Labour), but it must be up to local residents and opposition councillors to make sure they don't get away with it.
A bit stereotypical.
I live in an area with a Conservative-Independent coalition controlling the council.
We have weekly bin collections, a decent recycling system, and their "emergency budget" that was formed before Whitehall revealed their local government cuts didn't sound too bad at all. A couple of library closures.
It's actually the undemocratic side of my council that irritates me. The CEO "graciously" decided he would willingly take a 5% pay cut of his £200k salary. What are we paying him for, exactly?
How is that not too bad at all?
Because cuts are inevitable - the county has roughly 15 or 20 libraries - one or two (and neither of them were the major ones IIRC) is not a big deal.
To you perhaps, I doubt the users would agree.
Assuming they had any users.
Public transport in the county is not that bad - it is relatively easy to get to the major libraries from almost anywhere.
How can it be a bit stereotypical when it is something that actually happened
It sounded like you were suggesting that all Conservative councils will do as you said.
I wasn't suggesting that at all, there will be as many good Tory councils as there are good Labour councils as there are good Lib Dem councils, at the same time there will be as many bad Labour councils as there are bad Tory councils as there are bad Lib Dem councils.
The point of a community library is that it's part of the community.
I doubt very much Labour run councils would punish people any worse then other councils just to make a political point. They'd never get reelected again. How can they blame it all on the government if other councils fair better?
Didn't the Tories triumph in local elections by taking the most council seats in the 2009 local elections ?
We can't have everything.
If we can't afford it, we can't afford it.
Life isn't that simplistic.
We're choosing not to afford it.