Tag Archives: services

Train services fall under local control

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Voters could get a say in how their local train services are run under government proposals. Ministers are ready to scrap the system which gives the Department for Transport powers to dictate all train services and choose operators. Instead they are ready to hand over power to councils and locally run transport bodies.
Daily Telegraph, 29 Dec 11, p2

Based on my recent experiences with Network Rail, this proposal should also be extended to the way the local infrastructure is managed. It’s not that Network Rai don’t keep the trains on the tracks, or even the stations in one piece – just, but their communication and customer service skills are non-existent and currently, there doesn’t seem to be any way of giving them the kick up the a**e they so richly deserve!

If local control is introduced, won’t this will be another example of something going full circle? Railways started off as private companies, run locally and needing to keep their local customer base happy in order to stay in business and now we seem to be heading back to where we started.

Immigration becoming yet another elephant in the room

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Unashamedly lifted from the Conservative Home website, as I could not have put it any better myself.

Immigration comment
“The Coalition has declared its intention to get net immigration down from last year’s level of nearly 250,000 to the tens of thousands. But even that will not be good enough. In order to avoid the population reaching that 70 million, we have to get immigration down to 40,000 a year or less.” – Nicholas Soames and Frank Field in The Telegraph
“To put the matter brutally, neither David Cameron nor Theresa May has to live in Southall, Bradford or Tower Hamlets. They do not experience at first-hand the bitterness of traditional English people, who see their communities overtaken, their culture pushed aside, by people who force a path into Britain without the smallest desire, or even willingness, to embrace our ways or share our values.” – Max Hastings in the Daily Mail
“Ministers in the Home Office, from the Home Secretary downwards, should be under absolutely no illusion that failing to achieve the modest target set for them well before the next election will have a consequence: the public outcry they have faced these past few days will be as nothing to the wrath that unfolds.” – Express leader

Same old game with a different name

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I see from today’s Sunday Telegraph that parish and town councils are going to be encouraged to take on more local services as a way of forcing sorry, encouraging, the cause of Localism and the ‘Big Society’.

No problem with that as a concept, given that the cost of running many of the basic services that people value, is often inflated by the management structure of the organisation that runs the service, but without adding any real value to it.

Unfortunately, what is likely to happen is that, as these grassroots organisations gain more and more power, they are going to turn in to the ‘bureacratic monsters’ they were supposed to be replacing. Those little parish councils currently run by a part time clerk, who probably works for one or even two other parish councils, will suddenly find there’s a need for both a full time clerk, a book keeper or accountant, somebody who has some legal training, an HR expert just in case they get problems with employment law, an elf and safety expert, etc, etc.

Parish and town councils at present are not answerable to anybody, other than their voters, for excessive increases in their precept (their version of the council tax) unlike district councils, that can be capped and forced to re-bill by central government. So the next stage in this charade will be the need to introduce legislation requiring parish and town councils to submit balanced budgets and within government limits – how long before the first parish or town council kicks out their parish clerk and appoints a high paid chief executive? Before you know it you’ll be back where we are today, just using different names for it!

That Dog Won’t Hunt

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The Americans have a very appropriate saying for something that does not ring true, ‘That dog won’t hunt’, and given her dog walk analogy, this fits perfectly when applied to Julie William’s myopic piece in last week’s Spalding Guardian (Thurs 21st April).

She suggests that, apart from a few people, who through no fault of their own, have found themselves homeless, everything is all sweetness and light when it comes to the huge increase in population our area has seen since the previous government’s foolhardy throwing open opening of the immigration door several years ago.

Her narrow focus on the lack of law breaking, as proof that all is well, totally ignores the real concerns that local people have about the massive strain that has been placed on local services such as our hospitals, schools and doctors, not to mention our police and social housing. 

Even if it is only a few miscreants, their impact is significant and disturbing when witnessed by local people attempting to go about their everyday life, particularly in Spalding town centre. 

Local politicians, including John Hayes MP, would be remiss in their duty to taxpayers of all nationalities, if they did not make their concerns known and suggest that urgent solutions were required. 

John Hayes has been consistent and honest in raising these concerns over the years and far from being right-wing rhetoric, I think his words will ring true with many people, whatever their political persuasion. 

Indeed, one could suggest that only those blinded by their own political dogma, or maybe even by their embarrassment at being supporters of those who caused of the issue, would seek to criticise those now endeavouring to find pragmatic solutions.

I’m having a colour crisis!

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There’s an advertisement running in cinemas at the moment, for Orange mobile phones, that has relevance to the way I’m seeing my politics at the moment.  The advert has an animated parrot in it that starts off blue and is then turned orange by the off screen voice that’s controlling things.

My emerging association with this piece of imagery comes about because of statements from ‘call me Dave’, about how he’s going to revolutionise local government (for revolutionise read, kick the guts out of it) and the words of caution from Nick Clegg in today’s Daily Telegraph.

In other words, my Tory blue, whilst not quite turning into LibDem orange, is definitely feeling a bit on the pale side at the moment.  Nick Clegg has gone on the record today, saying about Dave’s latest idea for privatised policing, “Replacing a public monopoly with a private monopoly achieves nothing but reduced accountability” – I wish I’d said that.  All that education hasn’t been wasted after all.  Seriously and somewhat annoyingly, I find myself in agreement with Nick Clegg’s views on this, hence my colour clash.

It may seem somewhat simplistic on my part, but I still cannot see how a shift from an organisation that only has one goal – delivering services, to one that has making a profit by delivering public services, is a sound way forward.  As Gordon Brown once said, I agree with Nick!

Clearance Sale Now On!

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For Sale! One set of well cared for public services – any offer considered.

David Cameron intends to break the state’s monopoly on service provision by opening it up to the commercial and voluntary sectors.

As a science fiction geek, I can’t help but find parallels from the world of film in real life and what is being proposed by David Cameron, especially when it comes to big business taking over some of ‘the states’ functions, is one of them.

Even is you’re not in to sci-fi, I’m sure most of us can think of at least one film where the story revolves around big business pulling the strings of government and government appearing to be unable (or unwilling) to do anything about it.  One of my all time favourites is Harrison Ford’s Blade Runner, where the big corporation is run by a shadowy genius, who never leaves his penthouse, whilst wielding power over almost everything and everyone (including the police).

Today’s reality is not so stark.  However, spare a thought for all those services that used to be, but are no longer, controlled by government.  Gas, electricity, water, telephones, the post office, and the railways – I’m sure readers could think of a few more.  Most people would immediately say that things are far better now, as these private companies bring the much needed investment to industries starved of it by government.  I would agree with the last point, whilst questioning the first.  Apart from the pathetic telephone services that existed in this country prior to privatisation, just about everything else seemed to work pretty much as advertised and just needed leadership and investment.  Even more worrying and call me xenophobic if you must, many of the companies with their fingers on the light switch are now owned by foreign interests.

Government now wishes to farm out all the remaining services, whilst at the same time believing it can keep some level of control over the quality and cost to the end user.  Standby by for more Ofwats, Ofgems, Ofcoms, etc, etc.  Anybody think these regulators are doing a very good job for us?

Even more alarming is the government’s record on doing deals with the commercial world. The private finance initiatives used to build hundreds of public buildings, such as schools and hospitals, would be worthy of the world’s greatest conman, Bernie Madoff and his $50billion Ponzi scheme.  Likewise, the MOD was a cash cow for the defence industry, that is only now being culled.   This government bailed out the banks, continues to own large chucks of them (on behalf of taxpayers remember) yet remains unable to control their behaviour effectively.  When it comes to dealing with the commercial world, time and time again, government seems to take a tiger by the tail, without having a clue how to get to the business end to put on the collar.

A bit like the Royal Air Force, this latest proposal means that local government has probably had its day.  Of course central government will still need a local mechanism to deliver its agenda, but this will be no more than a contract monitoring office, staffed mainly by lawyers, bean counters and clerks.

Elected members can then be dispensed with, as an unnecessary encumbrance to what, without their interference, would be a straightforward set of business transactions.  After all, if localism is about giving local people control, why would you need elected members to be advocates on behalf of the people who now have control?

The public service ethos will be maintained by exploiting the willingness of local voluntary groups to deliver those services the commercial world finds unattractive, because they don’t make the right level of profit.

Finally, any political representation required, to give the few people that actually bother to vote something to do, would be provided by the directly elected mayors, that will be imposed on us at some point in the future.  This role will involve glad-handing, pretending to listen to the community and keeping an eye on the lawyers as they churn out all the contracts.

Just to finish on the sci-fi theme.  David Cameron has said that the judiciary and security are not up for grabs.   Robocop is all about an outsourced police force, where the dedicated cops on the street spend all their time being dropped in it because the greedy corporation that employs them, starves them of resources in order to increase profits.  Never say never Dave!

Pickles’ hypocricy continues

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Local government continues to be criticised from various quarters, whilst at the same time battling the worst grant settlement in recent history.  Media criticism is a given these days – there’s no news in good news when it comes to the press.  The other, and more damaging criticism, comes from a man who is now clearly demonstrating a pathological hatred of the institution that gave him his start in politics, but appears to have cause him some form of psychological damage in the process, Eric Pickles.

Although given the job of minister for local government and therefore supposedly an advocate for it within central government, this man appears to be on a one-man crusade, but enthusiastically aided and abetted by Shapps, Clark and Neill at various stages, to undermine his area of responsibility to the point of extinction.

The hypocritical utterances of Pickles since taking office just keep flowing, with his latest referring to senior officers’ salaries.  In keeping with his two-faced approach to the Localism agenda, he has now decreed that all councils will publish details of staff earning over £58,000 a year.  Not a big deal in itself, why shouldn’t the local taxpayer know what those running their local councils are earning.  However, at the same time, this ignores completely the government’s cave-in on a similar proposal for civil servants earning ‘fat cat salaries’ – his words not mine – and the subsequent pathetic requirements for them to publicise details of all those earning more than £150,000 a year.  One rule for them and another for the rest of the pond life, as the lower ranks were sometimes called when I was in the military.

The attack from the media comes in the form of an investigation by the BBC Breakfast News show.  It must have been extremely challenging making all those telephone calls to councils – worthy of a bonus, a party paid for from expenses and at least two self-congratulatory award ceremonies.

Apparently, councils are preying on the vulnerable by increasing the charges made for services such as meals on wheels, burials and cremations.  No councillor gets elected on the promise of cutting services, or of screwing the taxpayer for as much money as possible and given the choice, most of us would prefer to reduce the cost of any service the public values.  However, when confronted with a mad fat man in a hurry, whose only priority is to punish local government and grab media headlines whilst doing so, council’s are left with little choice.

Those with access to any of the local government range of publications and in particular the Local Government Chronicle (LCG), would have read numerous articles, written by all manner of so-called experts and informed commentators, some of them from within the government, encouraging councils to be more innovative in the way they raise revenue, with trading and charges being at the top of the list of must do’s.  Trading takes time and money to set up, but increasing charges for services doesn’t.  Desperate people do desperate things and so do desperate councils.