Is there something happening in world markets so disastrous as to need our leaders to immediately return from holiday? Our newspapers seem to think so, but don’t actually appear to know what Dave and George could do once they got back to the office.
Given that the business world does exactly what it likes, when it likes and there are some very powerful people pulling the strings and don’t really take much notice of politicians, I think Dave and George might as well stay on the beach!
Mock-up of London Road Bridge twinned
Whilst idling my time away on the sick list, I’ve been playing around with a few ideas for the ongoing problem of the junction at Little London, where London Road meets Cradge Bank. I’m sure the locals have a name for it, but I can never recall it! (If you’re a road map nerd, it’s the B1172!).
This should be a pretty straightforward crossroads, but a combination of the adjacent bridge, the very well used Hawthorn Bank close by and the busy BP garage almost opposite, make it a driver’s nigthtmare at busy times of the day. This is one of the major routes in and out of Spalding and given the new A16 to Peterborough, it can only get worse.
Looking at the road layout, courtesy of Google Maps, it’s obvious that it would take a bit more than a bit of adjustment to the road layout and nobody in Spalding would wish to see yet another set of traffic lights installed! At the other end of Spalding and crossing the same river, is a bridge known locally as twin bridges, so why not do the same at Little London? See the photo.
I see Eric Pickles went to the same school of economics as Gordon Brown, when it comes to protecting the long term finances of local government. Rather than commending councils for making wise investments, that deliver a long term return, Pickles wants councils to flog them off, to pay for the front line services he continues to strip of funding.
Gordon Brown did they same thing when he had the keys to the Treasury and sold off the country’s gold assets for peanuts, to pay for the Labour government’s spending spree.
As the list in today’s Daily Telegraph seems to suggest, most councils are holding assets that deliver a return for their taxpayers, so selling them off would be a one off win – once it’s gone, it’s gone. This is in stark contrast to central government that it is reported owns vast areas of land and many empty buildings, doing nothing and making no return for the taxpayer.
Put your own central government house in order Mr Pickles, before you start telling local government how to do things.
Ministers have announced proposals for a planning ‘guarantee’ designed to ensure no application for planning permission in England takes longer than 12 months to be determined, including any appeal. Another nail in the coffin of genuine Localism, when it comes to planning matters?
I can see a form of the ‘black economy’ in reverse emerging in some planning departments. Why? The current system dictates that, in order to cash the cheque that comes with any planning app, it has to be validated and put in to the system, so that the determination clock starts ticking.
Therefore, in order to avoid stating that clock, the planners just need to avoid validating the application, but continue to work on it off of the books, so that they can be one step ahead when the application does eventually come back – that’s the ‘black economy’ bit. The downside of this strategy is of course the lack of a fee to support the work now being carried ‘for free’, hence the ‘in reverse’ bit.
I doubt that many councils will want to adopt this sort of subterfuge, if only because of the up-front cost. However, in those areas where developers have a reputation for exploiting the system to make a fast buck, the local planning authority may have no choice, given the latest piece of planning system vandalism being proposed by DCLG.
It would appear that the world of ‘Yes Minister’ is still alive and well in Whitehall. According to todays’ newspapers:
‘More than 4,500 bureaucrats have been recruited by government departments since the election. The recruits outnumber those made redundant by three to one. At least 40 civil servants have been hired on salaries exceeding £150,000 per year in the past twelve months.’
Whilst at the local level at he behest of the likes of Eric Pickles, we have been busy enthusiastically decimating local government, Whitehall has been continuing to keep their nest well feathered, recruiting as many to their ranks as possible. Francis Maude has been conned by civil servants, who have many years of experience in pulling the wool over the politicians’ eyes, is running around telling everybody the government has cut £3.5 billion through increased efficiencies and cutting waste. All I can say to that is, ‘show me the money!’.
Even if that number is true, other ministers are busy finding ways to spend it on the overseas aid budget, so none of us will see the benefit. It would appear that charity no longer begins at home!
Did you know that we allow our house builders to build houses with the smallest room sizes in western Europe? Well you do now! I was reminded of this horrifying fact by the Channel 4 series The Secret Life Of Buildings. Even Denmark, a smaller country than ours, managers to treat it’s people like human beings, not battery hens, by having some of the best room sizes in Europe and only slightly below those in Australia. Wait until you see what damage the NPPF does!
I see Eric Pickles is once again demonstrating that his version of Localism – the directed one – is the only one that he actually believes in with his latest comments about town centre car parking charges.
Having shafted local government big time, by slashing its grant setlement by 28% in one year with even more to come, he now has the nerve to tell the public that town centre car parking charges will drop. Given his financial betrayal of local government, it’s not at all clear how he comes to this conclusion, but that’s about par for the course with this big mouthed minister.
The problem with car parking charges is that they are always viewed in isolation from all other areas of council business. They are either viewed as a burden on the taxpayer that must at best be kept cost neutral because they are so politically sensitive or, at the other end of the spectrum, they are seen as a source of revenue, that can legitimately be used to bolster the council’s income, despite the legislation saying that it should be run for profit. As always, where there’s a will there’s a way and many councils seems to do very nicley out of it, thank you very much.
My view is that, where approporiate, the cost of running a town centre car park should be seen as part of the council’s investment in the economic development of that town centre. If the evidence is there to show that car parking charges, or even the lack of them, is having an impact of the vitality or viabilty of a town centre, then why not include the cost of running the car park in the economic development strategy for that town?
This would then allow the council to justify to taxpayers the provision of free parking, where a town centre is found to be struggling and its shops closing down in increasing numbers, without being accused of subsidising motorists.
I see Oliver Letwin is calling for the cold wind of commercial reality to blow through the world of public service. Apparently, his radical suggestion is that, just like happens in the private sector, if somebody doesn’t do their job properly, they sholud be sacked and not just shuffled around the department until it’s time for them to retire.
Looked at from the outside, this doesn’t seem a particularly radical idea, until you look at the way the public sector, through it’s unions, has tied success governments and therefore the taxpayers in knots over the years. Public sector terms and conditions are based on the age old tradition of, work for peanuts, but get rewarded by a shorter working life and a better pension.
However, the confidence trick that has been played on the taxpayer over the past 20+ years, is that of ever increasing salaries, but without this being balanced by a reduction in their much criticised gold plated terms and conditions. Until that key point is addressed, the whole issue of dragging the public sector in to line with the private sector is going to remain a pipe dream.
By coincidence, I asked a very similar question when the district council was looking at how to reorganisation itself – how do we bring ourselves in the real world, by making our terms and conditions parallel the private sector? Like Oliver Letwin is no doubt already hearing, I was told that it wasn’t that easy. Apparently, the way public sector employment is structured in law, the council could not employ two people doing the same job, on different terms and conditions. If that is the case, then I can see little future for the public sector, as it seems the only way to level this particular playing field would be to scrap the public service sector completely and start again. Ultimately, is that what the Big Society is all about?
Desperation reporting is what I call it. Having failed to connect the Norwegian mass murderer Anders Breivik with any extremist groups in the UK, the press is now using his eBay purchases to make the connection. Particularly pathetic is the sighting of a DIY tool, that I recognise as the same as one I own – it’s a small hand vice used to hold small items on a pillar drill. The fact that this lunatic used it to hold bullets, is hardly the fault of the Sheffield tool store that sold it to him via eBay and falls a very long way short of a clear link to Britain. What next in this desperate search? Will we be told he was wearing underpants bought from a well known UK high street name?
Apparently Ed Miliband is being given plaudits for kicking the open goal that is the phone hacking scandal. Surely, unless he actually came out in support of Murdoch, it would be difficult for him not to be heard saying the right things wouldn’t it? Heaven help us if picking easy targets is all it takes to become a political leader.
Roger Gambba-Jones 