hi James
here’s a Top 10 list of the most incompetent Tory councils during 2011.

since your blog covers Lancashire councils I thought I’d include the history list for BLOG readers. Straight in at number 1 is West Lancashire Borough Council – who managed to completely ignore the fact that about 20% of their landmass is likely to disappear underwater by 2015. Even tho’ they had an official representative on the Environment Agency steering group, they hadn’t even noticed a large part of the borough is due to be permanently flooded….

Here’s the complete list…

This one is hilarious:-

http://www3.lancashire.gov.uk/corporate/news/press_releases/y/m/release.asp?id=201305&r=PR13/0216

When I first read this, the old idiom ‘don’t teach your grandmother to suck eggs’ was the first thing that sprang to mind.

But let’s look at this a little more closely, as the wording of this latest piece of news from LCC, really is entertainment of the highest order!

“Employees from the young people’s service are receiving training to help them improve their social networking, video and audio editing, and ICT media skills.

Once trained, they will support young people in using this technology to express their thoughts, participate in online forums and discussions and to improve their ICT skills.”

Oh please. So we are now paying the most useless people on the planet, yoof workers, to justify their existences by ‘supporting’ young people to play on Facebook, et al.

My sources tell me that besides the generous salaries that these fools receive for the countless hours spent cobbling this folly together, a substantial amount (in the region of £30,000 to £40,000) has been spent on funding for this pointless largesse.

Explaining this tax-payer-funded futility, yoof worker Ross Hamilton says about young people,“They’re now much more likely to get involved with facebook and YouTube.”

Er, really?

Why are we paying council tax to fund the lifestyles of useless pin monkeys of The Emperor’s New Clothes like Ross Hamilton?

Council chiefs from uber cowboy outfit, Lancashire County Council, are facing substantial legal costs of £210,000 from the High Court, due to the ‘inhuman and degrading treatment’ that two boys endured during 13 years of foster care. (Full story here: http://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/news/10373679.Lancashire_County_Council_facing___200k_bill_in_foster_wrangle/)

There is much to say about the council’s child stealing gravy-train, and the troughers who profit from children’s misery. In this case, Mr Justice Peter Jackson was particularly damning when he told the High Court, that the brothers’ ordeal was ‘one of the most shocking cases that we have ever come across of children failed by the care system.’

Anyone out there still feeling good about paying taxes to fund these councils full of dross?

But as regards the £210,000 legal costs in this case  - where will that money come from?

The council chief’s wages?

Of course not, dear reader. These useless parasites will not lose a penny of their own money. Not one of these overpaid stuffed suits will need to worry in the least. Not one will be held accountable, not one will lose their non-job, and not one will have to open their fat wallets to pay towards these court costs.

The judge in this case, has effectively fined the innocent tax payer. Many of whom are sick of reading story after story of the mind-boggling incompetence taking place in the public sector.

Firstly, apologies for the blog hiatus!

This was for two reasons. One being, the need for reflection on the nature of this blog. I have been putting some thought into its direction, and will maybe be expanding its theme a little.

The other, the bigger one, was the birth of mine and Mrs Nonjob’s baby daughter! A much happier affair, but her entry into the world has, obviously, been taking up the majority of my spare time.

A big heartfelt thanks to Gary and other people who have kept in touch about the blog.

I have had my eye on the ball, and not a great deal has changed out there in local government la la land. Pickles is still a toothless tiger and people are still paying too much tax to fund the local gov non-job gravy train. The Emperor’s New Clothes are still resplendent!

The councils are still operating profligate, incompetent organisations, from beneath their unturned stone of unimpeachability. Unfortunately for the tax payer, there is no shortage of material for this blog.

The latest fiasco taking place over in Ormskirk, I find particularly galling.

West Lancs Borough Council love to proudly trumpet the fact that Ormskirk is a ‘Historic Market Town.’ Indeed, the market is one of the country’s oldest, dating back to 1286. But unfortunately, the current custodians of this historic market, West Lancs Council, are incompetent fools.

Despite the market traders paying the highest rents in the area to the hapless council, trade is plummeting. Down by 50% since last year, by some traders estimates. The traders are so disgusted by the councils lack of support, they have decided to withhold their rent payments.

The full story can be read here: http://www.osadvertiser.co.uk/news/ormskirk-news/2013/04/11/ormskirk-market-traders-go-on-rent-strike-in-protest-at-perceived-lack-of-support-from-west-lancashire-council-80904-33149509/

Just more evidence that local government is not fit for purpose and long overdue radical reform.

hi James

In a previous post to your Blog i sent a letter posted in a local news rag from a chap who stated the newly elected police and crime commissioners (P&CC) have wasted no time in sticking their snouts into the taxpayers trough. Now, True to their newly acquired status, the Cumbrian P&C Commissioner has just spent £700 of taxpayers money on two chauffeur-driven trips around the Lake district. When his office staff leaked the story about the expenses they were arrested…. you couldn’t make this rubbish up!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/apr/18/mps-police-leak-commissioner-chauffeur

have fun

Gary

hi James - snippet below from news print…

An alley in Swindon - far too narrow to squeeze a car down, has been painted with double yellow lines on each side. The lane is so narrow that there’s only 13 inches between the lines. Swindon Borough Council told the BBC they would be taking the matter up with their contractor. A spokesman for Swindon council said: “It seems that our contractors forgot just how big cars actually are”. 

http://money.aol.co.uk/2013/04/16/council-paints-yellow-lines-down-tiny-alley/

Gary

hi james

some more food for yer blog…this is from a letter by D Walker, Barrowford to the LET… link is here...cheers Gary

Pendle Borough Council has frozen the Council tax and Lancashire County Council is to reduce their part by 2 per cent. That is the good news.

The bad news is that our recently elected Labour Police and Crime Commissioner has decided that he wants to increase his bill by 2%. Mind you, I suppose this is understandable if he is treading the same beat as some of his fellow P&CCs. For example a fifth of the newly created crime tsars are appointing staff to help them develop and implement policies. Many have handed out jobs to people from their campaign teams, fellow party members and former colleagues without even advertising them, although one has at least advertised for a ‘dynamic thinking team’ including a head of policy, performance and communications and a head of commissioning and partnerships, each on salaries up to £73,500 a year.

None of these posts existed under the previous system for governing forces, nor were they mentioned in their manifestos, so why are they necessary now? Only time will tell whether or not the P&CCs and their bloated teams of advisors will reduce crime, but what is immediately obvious is that some have wasted no time in digging their snouts deep into the taxpayers trough.

Since the coalition have been in power, almost 250,000 council positions have been done away with, without affecting frontline services. Quite a staggering fact!

This has been possible due to the fact that these positions were non jobs.

But even after this substantial cull of unemployable buffoons, make no mistake, your local council is still full of surplus to requirements, dead-wood. And these parasites on the tax payer do not like the fact that their sinecure ivory towers are being brought to book.

Currently, Lancashire’s councils, like the majority of councils up and down the country are mustering all their combined intelligence and creativity to find ways to prevent the gravy train being derailed. As council employees are noted for a distinct lack of intelligence and creativity, their options are extremely limited. So limited, in fact, that it basically comes down to one option: Increasing council tax bills.

Only a third of the country’s councils have heeded the government’s advice to freeze council tax. The majority are opting to raise it as much as they now legally can - 1.99%. Most are also looking at the option of taxing empty properties a whopping 150%!!

I have quite enjoyed reading various councils spout their high handed justifications for this latest weasel tactic.

All of a sudden, their social conscience has been awoken and they feel that to make sure empty properties do not remain empty,  they are imposing this venal tax of 150%!!

This is totally unacceptable and completely outrageous. But, judging by the current mismanaged mess that the nation is in, they will probably get away with it. 

Government cuts have just resulted in the sinecure councils using all their powers to take money from people in other ways. 

Council tax freezes are not enough. We need council tax reductions and a genuine reform of local government. 

Council tax reductions = More money in people’s pockets to spend in the real world = A healthier economy.