Tory Council Facing Bankruptcy

[Kromovaracun]

https://m.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/northamptonshire-county-council-raided-schools-s106-subsidy-to-fix-budget_uk_5ace394ee4b0648767760786

Can we really expect cutbacks to magically improve efficiency without sacrificing service quality?

[gulliver1]

Should have voted Labour.

[jackthehat]

Although the recent coverage of NCC provides many reports of financial mismanagement attributable to the Tory-running of it, that is not a true reflection.
NCC has been an omni-shambles of an organisation for the past 30 years, at least.
They squander funds, mis-manage and mis-identify developments, undertake vanity-projects and regularly fail to see 'the big picture' in any given situation.
It is astonishing that they have continued in the same vein no matter who has been at the helm, or however it has been constituted. There are very few people in Northamptonshire who have anything positive, at all, to say about NCC.

[EDDIE51]

I have been watching the development of the problems at Northampton council for a while. I am certain that someone ,or more likely many people,have been on the fiddle on a grand scale. They loaned £10 million to the town football club to rebuild the grounds and stands . The entire lot disappeared with no work being done on the football grounds at all. I understand that independent investigators are now looking into the financial problems. Hopefully they will come up with some answers, but I can see zero chance of getting any of the missing £millions back.

[ToraToraTora]

yes another reason to abolish local authority altogether. All you get is self serving dullards who can't get a proper job u=indulging their fantasies with public money. Replace them all with a properly employed management structure to run the local public sector infrastructure. In my town we have 59 Councillors and I know some of them personally. They have a "cabinet" and pay themselves a salary and rip off what exes they can for attending meetings etc. and yes it is Tory but really local politics is an illusion.

[jackthehat]

That was the Borough Council, EDDIE.

Almost as incompetent as NCC, granted, but with a smaller budget to squander......

[Old_Geezer]

The system needs a good shake up. Westminster and local authorities blame each other, the public don't know what is so.: just that there didn't seem to be such problems supplying basic service when they were young. The types of local authorites are numerous and have different areas of responsibility; they differ from place to place, and is one sure there's no overlap, nor anything missed ? I suspect it needs standardising so all communities get the best practice. And budgets/spends should be public knowledge so both government and public can monitor all's above board. If there's an issue it needs to be fixed, not hidden.

[cassa333]

I don't even pretend to know how central funding goes with local funding but it does seem to me to be muddled at best.

Local services need to be funded from somewhere and that is either centrally or locally. Either our income tax goes up and we don't have local taxes or it goes the other way with minimal income tax and higher local tax.

Personally I go for low income tax that pays for national services such as health, education, defence and civil defence (police,fire etc), road networks and benefits to the nation etc and government and then higher local tax to pay for local services.

I wonder if that is how local councils started life but morphed into giant Goliaths on the back of power hungry locals!

[youngmafbog]

What do you expect from a council, I''m with TTT on this.

//Can we really expect cutbacks to magically improve efficiency without sacrificing service quality?//

Of course you cant, but labour seem to think you can especialy it you use Abbottmatics.

The big problem is not enough people pay Council tax there are too many ways of getting out of it. Council tax should be abolished and the revenue collected fro income tax - One single tax not NI/EHI/Income.

[cassa333]

Or in the US there is a local tax on all transaction. When I went over in 1998 it was 6%.

[youngmafbog]

In the US different places have different sales taxes. In addition the base one (VAT) is substantially lower.

The sad fact is the UK tax is very high if you add up all the stealth/hidden taxes.

[cassa333]

I agree both our stealth and direct taxes are high. But I do think that point of use tax would be good. Minimal road tax but put make petrol higher. If you don't use the roads as much you pay less. That sort of thing.

[DTCwordfan]

Gness and Ummmm must be costing them a fortune!