Local authorities, is there a better way?

[Loosehead]

Related to other questions below. It seems that local authorites seem to waste huge amounts of public money, I was wondering if there is a better way. I mean dozens of councillors with snout in trough, democracy is an illusion at local level, could we not run the towns/counties like a business somehow? I did at the start of my career work in a LA and I was totally gobsmacked at the attitude and waste, for example I once got lectured by the Nalgo rep for not taking my "allocation" of sick leave! Any Ideas?

[jake-the-peg]

Snouts in the trough?

You work for a bank don't you?

[Loosehead]

don't be twit, jake, answer the naffing question. Banks have to run efficiently or they go down the kazi, unlike Local Authorities.

[Gromit]

You vote for a councillor who is local. The party with the most councillors decides how the council is run and what the money is spent on.

The party in power employs officials to administer the policy.

The Officials employs workers to action the policies.

In theory a very democratic and sound way to run your community.

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Where the system often fails is with the Officials. The money they have to play with is not earned but given to them. There is poor management, poor training, no incentives. Compared to the private sector, the workers have poor time management, take more days off sick, have more holidays, work less hours yet have a great pension scheme. All of which is funded by our Income Tax and to a lesser degree, our Council Tax.
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Unfortunately, the only alternative is to run your local community by some faceless bureaucrat in Whitehall, who may not be any better, and who you cannot vote out if they c0ck-up.

I do not want that.

[jake-the-peg]

"banks have to run efficiently or they go down the khazi"

How have you got the cheek to say that with Northern Rock being propped up with public funds?

[jno]

"Banks have to run efficiently or they go down the kazi"

What - like Northern Rock?? Zillions in debt, which the taxpayer then has to refund while the bosses leave with bulging wallets? There's just as much incompetence in publicly run companies as in the private sector, with fat cats richly rewarded for failure.

That said, have you read the Qinetiq stories this morning? More costly wastefulness, this time in central government. Grrr.

[jno]

uh, yeah, like Jake said while I was busy typing.

[Loosehead]

The fact that the governemt is propping up northern rock does not invalidate the general statement I made. If they screw up they fail, simple. If the government had not stepped in then the khazi awaits.

[jake-the-peg]

Then we have things like this:

http://www.cheatingculture.com/jpmorganchase.h tm

Not just local authorities is it?

[Loosehead]

Ok Jake, you are determined to avoid the question, I get it, I get it.

[Gromit]

It is true to say there are badly run Councils and there are badly run Companies as well. Badly run Companies fail to earn as much money as they potentially could and often fail to stay in business. Badly run Councils fail to spend their (our) money efficiently and fail the community.

But I do not see a credible alternative to the present system of local democracy.

[New Judge]

There is no need for local government.

All that is needed is a local executive to run services for the local community. There is no need to elect such officials. The jobs can be advertised in the usual way with Central Government as the employer. Funding would be on a per capita basis, all coming from central funds.

My experience of local government is similar to that of national government. There is very little difference to be gained from a change of administration and party politics (which is even more venal when seen locally than nationally) puts paid to any idea of �local� representation.

My own local council has no fewer than 49 separate committees or sub-committees. It lists no fewer than 78 �key performance indicators�. Many of these KPIs are either unintelligible (e.g. �Culture Block Score�; �Environment Block Score�), or outside the Council�s sphere of influence (e.g. �Domestic burglaries per 1,000 households�). Three, however, are very telling:

�The percentage of residents that think the Council provides very/fairly good value for money�. For this they set themselves the spectacularly low target of 23% for the current year, with a planned improvement at year 3 of 30%. No actual figures are available.

�The percentage of residents who state that they feel the Council listens to the concerns of local people". They set a target of 45% and have failed for the past 2 years.

And most tellingly:

�The percentage of residents who agree that they can influence decisions affecting their local area.� The target for this is 28% (which, conveniently they just manage to achieve, thus ensuring the CE�s bonus payments).

So we have an elected organisation which expects just about a quarter of its electorate to believe they are able to influence its decisions.

I�ll say no more!

[Gromit]

New Judge

I don't think the people of Knightsbridge or Kensington would be happy for the Labour Government to manage their area.

Just because people think they cannot influence their council does not mean in reality they cannot.

Councils handle a lot of money so that it is only right that their performance should be measured. You may yourself not understand the KPIs but then, they are not produced for your benefit. If a council is failing in its care of elderly people, then they will not achieve their target and will lose funding until it reaches an acceptable level.

My grievance with the Council is not the Policies but the inefficient running and management which wastes an awful lot of money.

[New Judge]

The people of Kensington and Knightsbridge would probably be unhappy at anybody running their area. They�d much prefer to keep their money and run it themselves.

People are more astute than you give them credit for. They usually understand what their limitations are and, in reality, people have little or no control over what their local council does or does not do in their name.

As far as the KPIs are concerned, I have a good understanding of performance measurement as I have spent a large part of my working life in this sphere. The money that Councils are handling is public money and an understandable statement of how that money is spent should be available. If the measurements I�ve quoted are not produced for �my� benefit, then why go to the time, trouble and expense of publishing them on a public website?

Or is this just another example of Council doing something because it can and because it justifies a few posts?

[jake-the-peg]

My point is that the performance of councils is no worse than an awful lot of companies out there and in many cases a whole lot better.

If the banking industry is a little too close to home lets take - oh say Thames Water

I don't think I want to swap my local councillors with the executive and management of that shower - would you?

You can vote out councilers - what come back do their millions of customers have?

[Loosehead]

I was aksing if there was a better way jake? Any ideas? I'm not saying everything else is perfect.

[ruby27]

Loosehead
jake-the- peg could set us right on how long the human race has been around.
But, humans create and construct systems of social organisation, such as hierarchy, democracy, gender, race, and party politics. Guess what all these wonderful systems get screwed up because the main player is human and a bit flawed
There isn't the perfect politician, the public servant, the entrepreneur. There is instead a collection of humans who to a lesser and greater extend fulfil the roles.
The answer is lets import more efficient aliens!

[Oneeyedvic]

Over 80% of new start businesses will not be about in 3 years time. A further 80% of the ones that do survive will not be there to celebrate their 5th year.

Would you be happy with your local council paying a bonus of �5 Million to the Managing Director? That is what the MD of a FTSE 100 company will get as a minimum.

Look at the amount of people on this site - they come from all types of businesses - and most of them use the computer during work times for personal use.

Whilst I would agree that democracy is an illusion at National level, I do actually believe that locally (at least in my area) it is far easier to influence the local council.

Look at places like Norwich where there is a majority of the Green Party in power - very democratic.

[ruby27]

Oneeyedvic

I have to say I am amazed at how much activity there is here during the day. I often wonder if everyone is either on shift or self employed. At my work place (profligate public service), most people do not have time to get a lunch break, certainly do not have time to 'surf the net'. As a manager if I found anyone using the net for private use outside their break, I would be disciplining them. We take seriously that our salary is paid by the public.