Southwark Council Budget Cuts 2009/10 (Lounged)

[macroban]

The cabals will have started meeting: planning our future.

Wouldn't want to see another "late" announcement such as closing a children's museum with no realistic time for community consultation.

Any inside information or leaks?

We need to keep an eye on the Council's budget planning and its impact on East Dulwich.

[Fuschia]

macroban Wrote:>

> We need to keep an eye on the Council's budget

> planning and its impact on East Dulwich.

and impact on the rest of Southwark and its residents!

[AcedOut]

Fuscia - no disrespect and without wanting to point out the obvious, but this is an 'East Dulwich' forum!

[Administrator]

Moving this to the Lounge as it is not East Dulwich specific. Yes it affects the people in East Dulwich (as does policing, environmental issues, the price of coffee etc) but is not specific to East Dulwich.

Even if the original poster does change the first message to say "East Dulwich"

[edited once]

[macroban]

-- moved topic --

[Fuschia]

AcedOut Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Fuscia - no disrespect and without wanting to

> point out the obvious, but this is an 'East

> Dulwich' forum!

No disrespect but the original comment did come across rather as if "As long as we're Ok, mate!"

[macroban]

An added complication.

[macroban]

The projected average increase in council tax is 3.5% and the government cap is 5%

The council's revenue is significantly down.

Draft budgets will have already been prepared.

What cuts are on the way?

[Marmora Man]

Why not put the proposal the other way - not questioning potential cuts, which implies all the council spending is required, but asking "what are the essential services the council must offer" and then cutting everything else.

Suggest we do need:

a. Effective Social Services

b. Effective street cleaning & collection of household waste

c. Effective maintenance of repairs of roads & street lighting.

After that I run out - leisure services***, libraries, museums could all be better handled by a not for profit / private sector / charity organisation, perhaps with some, limited, council subsidy.

Do we need:

a. Lots of councillors?

b. A council PR department

c. Community wardens

*** - EG: The Brockwell Lido versus East Dulwich Leisure Centre. The former has been leased out to a private company for 309 years - the refurb and subsequent services are excellent. EDLC - refurb delayed and still a dingy experience.

[Huguenot]

Whilst I tend to agree with MM that councils shouldn't diversify beyond core interests, I think we're maybe missing the point with some of those suggestions.

Privatisation (or reductions in subsidy) essentially means passing on the cost to the end user rather than the community. However, I tend to believe that healthcare and education are most in need by those who are least capable of paying for them.

We made a decision a century ago that our society would improve if we could share in the cost of educating the needy caring for the sick and encouraging public health through prevention (fitness) rather than cure (hospitals).

I feel that our success as a nation (recession witheld) is as a direct consequence of the group decision we made to help others out less fortunate than ourselves. To reject this philosophy now after we've reaped the benefits is rather to try and have your cake and eat it. You end up with Thatcher's failed society knifing teenagers and stealing your dogs.

The soundbite but pointless attacks on councillors and PR departments is designed to both rouse the rabble and utterly to miss the boat. This is not where money is spent.

As the following datasheet shows, libraries are a tiny fraction of the budget delivering incalculable public benefit.

I should also point our that society doesn't pay for all of these services, as they also generate a revenue of their own. In fact about 70% of the service cost is carried by MM's target - the end user.

I'm concerned that we're seeing 20% rises forecast in children's service and healthcare, since we haven't got 20% more kids or 20% more sick people is this a kneejerk reaction to recent well documented cases?

[Marmora Man]

Hugenot,

Good to see the data - I'd agree my response was a "kneejerk" libertarian take on centralised control and spending. However, having seen the headline numbers I'd suggest that there's probably a lot of fat in the Planning & Economic Development budget, it's only rising by a small % but could be cut. I'm also certain that more could be done with less people - less meetings, less memos and more action. Lord Digby (enobled by this government) stated that his experience of being a Minister for this government was that most ministries could do more with half the number of civil servants.

A couple of comments your specific points:

Privatisation (or reductions in subsidy) essentially means passing on the cost to the end user rather than the community. However, I tend to believe that healthcare and education are most in need by those who are least capable of paying for them[ Council's don't, on the whole, pay for the NHS or Education thru' council tax bills - this is a government service and cost. The last 12 years of government interference in both the NHS and the Education service have not been glorious - I believe firmly that more private enterprise (not for profit / charity included) in both sectors would benefit rather than harm the outcomes for health and education.

We made a decision a century ago that our society would improve if we could share in the cost of educating the needy caring for the sick and encouraging public health through prevention (fitness) rather than cure (hospitals). A century ago there was an effective education system that delivered almost 100% literacy, not the case now. Similarly a century ago there was an effective healthcare system - the "poor" had Saturday Clubs (1d a week) - an early form of health insurance that covered many costs, many were not charged for healthcare at all. The nationalisation of health in 1948 has not been a great success - it remains the only nationalised health service outside of the remaining communist regimes and hasn't been copied by any successful, democratic industrial nation in the world. Having worked within it and alongside it for over 16 years I know it could be leaner, better and far more effective given strong management and less government interference. The emphasis on health rather than cure has not yet happened - and the fatuous campaign now running (fit4life) is patronising and probably ineffective.

I feel that our success as a nation (recession witheld) is as a direct consequence of the group decision we made to help others out less fortunate than ourselves. To reject this philosophy now after we've reaped the benefits is rather to try and have your cake and eat it. You end up with Thatcher's failed society knifing teenagers and stealing your dogs. It is entirely possible to help others without creating a major welfare dependent client base. The state isn't the answer - it's been tried and seems, to me, to have failed. I don't argue the need for the cliche'd "safety net" but I do and will continue to argue for greater personal responsibility and use of charity / not for profit and, yes, profit based organisations to assist those in need and not the state.

[SeanMacGabhann]

a bold gambit given the current situation and why we are in it

[Marmora Man]

There's a good libertarian argument for letting the failed banks fail and keeping the state out of it. Some of the costs of the state bailout are themselves preventing / persuading banks not to lend. Having to pay 12% on the government preference shares when the gov't sets a bank rate of 1.5% isn't too clever.

Final responsibility for this crisis rests with the state. For at least ten years, the Bank of England and government - and the central banks in most other countries - have kept interest rates below the market equilibrium. The result has been an frenzy of credit creation by the commercial banks. This led to an asset price bubble that has now burst.

The recession we now face cannot be avoided by pseudo-scientific manipulations of ?aggregate demand? It is the natural result of malinvestment and general speculation. A return to prosperity is best achieved not by trying to reflate the speculative bubble, but by allowing the liquidation of bad investments to proceed as quickly as possible.

I agree that this will be painful to those who lose money or livelihoods. But there is no avoiding the aftereffects of an inflationary boom.

Governments can stand back and let weak institutions fail. This will bring on the worst financial collapse since 1931, and be followed by a nasty recession. Or they can spray vast amounts of our tax money into the financial markets, which might briefly delay the worst financial collapse since 1931 and a nasty recession to follow.

[david_carnell]

I'd suggest that there's probably a lot of fat in the Planning & Economic Development budget, it's only rising by a small % but could be cut.

I'd be interested to hear exactly what. On the proviso you actually have an idea about where there is wastage in this dept and not using it merely as a scapegoat. I rather hoped that proper economic planning and investment (and the costs incurred) was rather essential but I'm open to new ideas.

The mysterious "Other Services" might warrant further investigation, mind you.

[david_carnell]

For at least ten years, the Bank of England and government - and the central banks in most other countries - have kept interest rates below the market equilibrium.

How does a politically indepedent BoE suddenly include the government? I was under the impression that the council-up-on-high that set interest rates were the greast and the good of the financial sector and private industry. The very people you wish to hand more power to.

BoE independence was a cornerstone of Labour and for the first time allowed large economic decisions to be taken without political point-scoring. A Very Good Thing imho.

[PeckhamRose]

Interesting thread which (as a relative newcomer) I suspect takes us back to the sort of Forum Marmora Man himself feared had disappeared for a while!

I believe Marmora Man has a lot of inside experience in this subject and I bow to it, but I do always worry about when society gets sick (which I believe it currently is) because it opens the way for religious / right to dive into the cracks and "save"/indoctrinate the poor. And this would possibly be under the guise of society helping itself / non profit organisations that Marmora Man talks of. This should be avoided at all costs.

On another point "The health of the people is the highest law" is above the Southwark Council library in Walworth Road and I always love seeing that.

I certainly believe that Southwark Council (and thus probably any council) likes to have things one way. Example, I was at a council meeting where expensive brochures and cards had been made which would be given to new shops and businesses in the area when they set up shop, to let them know what they can and can not do and what would be expected of them. I said I felt it was so outrageous that Southwark wasted all this money and this opportunity, and did not tell those same businesses and shops what it could in turn expect from the council. For examples, responsible and reasonable rating, and free parking facilities etc.

[Marmora Man]

On the proviso you actually have an idea about where there is wastage in this dept and not using it merely as a scapegoat. I rather hoped that proper economic planning and investment (and the costs incurred) was rather essential but I'm open to new ideas.

My, admittedly sparse, experience of local councils is limited to fighting my way through almost impenetrable bureaucracy to:

a. Obtain a planning review on a Tree Protection Order (on a Black Pine in the middle of a hillside with > 100,000 said black pines) that had been established in secrecy to prevent me lopping a tree 5 feet from my house.

b. Seeking advice on Social Services support for frail Father-in-Law - which took in excess of 5 months, involved innumerable phone calls, ever changing staff and advisors, numerous visits, much chasing up, almost incomprehensible forms to be filled in, statements, counter statements, conflicting advice and confusion.

These two experiences lead me to believe that a council department involved in Economic Planning is liable to add to the burden of business and the local economy rather than the reverse. Central planning had, I thought, died with the end of Soviet Russia. Better to establish the right conditions for encouraging business - low rates, good public transport, clean streets.

[david_carnell]

Whislt I agree with you than local government bureacracy can be impenetrable, and is also moneywasting, I only have to phone my mobile telephone/water/gas/eletric company (all of whome are privatised and have little regulatory burden by comparison) to notice that "innumerable phone calls, ever changing staff and advisors, numerous visits, much chasing up, almost incomprehensible forms to be filled in, statements, counter statements, conflicting advice and confusion" are hardly unique to the public sector.

I fail to see the irrefutable proof that a private company would suddenly alleviate such inefficiencies.

And surely a local council is not central planning. That would involve Whitehall departments running and managing local services. Something which, to a large extent, they do not.

[AllforNun]

Has anyone from say any political party affiliation volunteered to join your admin teams ? serious question, just wondering.