Audit Commission

[steeljack]

Think it would be interesting if someone could do a review/tally of how many Council employees the "old' UDC's" had who now make up Hyndburn, and compare it with present day numbers .....I'm sure the numbers are available somewhere, but think it would require a request under the freedom of information laws to get the HBC to release such information ,unless one of the Local Councillors were to request the numbers in an HBC meeting ........ Ken Moss .. over to you

[Ken Moss]

Originally Posted by steeljack

Think it would be interesting if someone could do a review/tally of how many Council employees the "old' UDC's" had who now make up Hyndburn, and compare it with present day numbers .....I'm sure the numbers are available somewhere, but think it would require a request under the freedom of information laws to get the HBC to release such information ,unless one of the Local Councillors were to request the numbers in an HBC meeting ........ Ken Moss .. over to you

Thank you, Steeljack. And in other news.....

It's actually probably quite comparable to the number of collective staff we have now, although the old UDCs had a lot of unpaid people around the table. Although people do look back fondly on those pre-1974 days, financially speaking they would probably have had to change drastically in the intervening years. I've still not heard a convincing argument for abolishing them, though.

However, speaking personally there are only a few cuts I would make within HBC itself as the machinery itself does seem to be quite efficient for the most part. One particular department could be excised at a stroke and its role subsumed by other departments but that will never happen under a Britcliffe administration as it was his idea in the first place. The only thing truly wrong at the moment is the man pulling all the strings.

Give a monkey control of his environment and he will fill the world with bananas, with little regard to what anyone else wants.

[Margaret Pilkington]

Originally Posted by g jones

The spin coming out of the Coalition about 'Labour this' and 'Labour that' is just the shotgun start to the next election.

Already Michael 'Grovelling' Gove has had to apologise to the House of Commons for saying BSF was unfunded after Treasury officials confirmed it was. The facts did not stop him making such arrogant, ill-founded claims in the preceding days in a an attempt to cosy up to the message of lambasting Labour's unfunded promises.

Liam Fox is doing the same, as all his colleagues are and it is bare faced cheek from him when he said we were not spending enough on defence in the run up.

Graham, you know just as well as anyone that while Liam Fox was in opposition he could say what he wanted......he didn't have the power to do anything.....and all politicians do the same thing while in opposition.
Now he is in the place to do something let us see what happens.

I have no party allegiance, but even you must admit, that the last government made a total MCU of things.

When a party is in opposition it promises the earth if you elect them.....without considering how this is to be funded.(Perhaps they themselves have no idea as to how it will be funded)
When yo do elect them you don't get the earth, you get fertilizer(and I'm being polite here).

I don't care which party are elected as long as they have the will, the intellect, and the cojones to get us out of the mess we are in.

[Ken Moss]

Originally Posted by Margaret Pilkington

Graham, you know just as well as anyone that while Liam Fox was in opposition he could say what he wanted......he didn't have the power to do anything.....and all politicians do the same thing while in opposition.
Now he is in the place to do something let us see what happens.

I have no party allegiance, but even you must admit, that the last government made a total MCU of things.

When a party is in opposition it promises the earth if you elect them.....without considering how this is to be funded.(Perhaps they themselves have no idea as to how it will be funded)
When yo do elect them you don't get the earth, you get fertilizer(and I'm being polite here).

I don't care which party are elected as long as they have the will, the intellect, and the cojones to get us out of the mess we are in.

My watchword on the doorstep was that anyone who comes a-knocking cannot promise you anything because they don't have the power to do so. Nationally, it's a bit of a different ball game although you're heavily reliant on what the party in Westminster decides to do.

The Conservatives have made a lot of promises in the run up to the election, the biggest lies probably being the referendums on electoral reform and on the EU, neither of which will now happen.

Mind you, give them credit for thinking big. The best argument for voting Tory that the local party could come up with was a leaflet showing their candidates hugging a grit bin. We had a good laugh about that, partly because it was Tory council and county council that failed to prepare for last winter but mainly because Britcliffe tried to make out that it was Labour's fault.

Ever the politician, even his own mistakes are the fault of the opposition.

[jaysay]

Originally Posted by Ken Moss

My watchword on the doorstep was that anyone who comes a-knocking cannot promise you anything because they don't have the power to do so. Nationally, it's a bit of a different ball game although you're heavily reliant on what the party in Westminster decides to do.

The Conservatives have made a lot of promises in the run up to the election, the biggest lies probably being the referendums on electoral reform and on the EU, neither of which will now happen.

Mind you, give them credit for thinking big. The best argument for voting Tory that the local party could come up with was a leaflet showing their candidates hugging a grit bin. We had a good laugh about that, partly because it was Tory council and county council that failed to prepare for last winter but mainly because Britcliffe tried to make out that it was Labour's fault.

Ever the politician, even his own mistakes are the fault of the opposition.

Think they call it politics Ken, mind you your new at this game, in time you'll learn

[Ken Moss]

Originally Posted by jaysay

Think they call it politics Ken, mind you your new at this game, in time you'll learn

I'm vaguely aware of how it works, John....

However, the performance in the council chamber was rather a scrabbling one by Britcliffe and a desperate attempt to shift blame onto anyone but himself. There are three things you can guarantee in any answer from Peter:

1) Blame was the previous administration

2) 13 years of Labour rule have ruined the borough

3) It's all Graham Jones' fault

If we had the Hansard volumes in Hyndburn you could just copy and paste that after every answer at Question Time, particularly point 3.

Peter just can't stop talking about Graham. I think he misses him terribly.

[jaysay]

Originally Posted by Margaret Pilkington

While they might seem to be the real experts Mancie, do you think that they are not biased. I think that when a government takes advice, it has to be seen to be from some impartial source.

Because a soldier defends this country does not mean that he knows where best to apply defence cuts, any more than a GP can run the NHS, it would be asking them something neither is trained to do.......would you ask the barber if he thought you needed a haircut????

Think your spot on there Margaret, savings don't mean cuts, it mans make the establishment leaner and meaner with little disruption to main aims of which ever department is in question. To explain it in terms Mancie can understand lets say we have a guy who buys 20 bottles Carlsberg Special Brew every day. Now our guy is a bit lazy, but very initiatively driven, saw before the wife goes out to work he gets her to open all the bottles and place them on the cold shelf next to his chair, unfortunately ever night he only ever drinks 16 and the other 4 are thrown away. This goes on for weeks until the wife says why don't you just buy 16 bottles and we'll save a fortune, by cutting out 20% waste The guy still gets wasted every night, but it cost 20% less to do it.

[jaysay]

Originally Posted by steeljack

Think it would be interesting if someone could do a review/tally of how many Council employees the "old' UDC's" had who now make up Hyndburn, and compare it with present day numbers .....I'm sure the numbers are available somewhere, but think it would require a request under the freedom of information laws to get the HBC to release such information ,unless one of the Local Councillors were to request the numbers in an HBC meeting ........ Ken Moss .. over to you

Its a different animal SJ and can't really be compared really, here would probably be around 120 councillors (I don't know for sure what other councils consisted of Ossy had 15 councillors in 5 wards) but of course councillors did the work out of the goodness of their heart without pay in those days. Even so I think overall to have say 6 different refuge collection services within a small area that is now Hyndburn would be utter stupidity today and that goes for a lot of other things too, I know lots of people would like to return to the old UDC set up but this day and age it would uneconomical and would overall cost a hell of a sight more